


Ready, Set, Cook!

by softseoksoons



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Fraternity, Comedy, Cooking, Fluff, Fraternities & Sororities, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mentions of alcohol, Minor Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Kim Jungwoo, competitions, friendly warfare, they're idiots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:02:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28432119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softseoksoons/pseuds/softseoksoons
Summary: “Wait, weren’t you just proclaiming Doyoung as your enemy? Why are we returning the favor?” Mark asked lightly, eyebrows still scrunched in confusion.“Mark you seriously don’t know anything,” Jungwoo commented, and everyone laughed but Mark.Mark still felt unsatisfied by being out of the loop, but he let it go and returned to his food like everyone else.He shouldn’t expect much from Delta Nu anyway.OR: 5th and 10th floor as fraternities who start a friendly cooking competition between each other because of their resident two idiots doyu
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Nakamoto Yuta
Comments: 12
Kudos: 109
Collections: NCTV Secret Santa 2020





	Ready, Set, Cook!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [samuraiseonghwa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samuraiseonghwa/gifts).



> to "Socks!" let me tell you this prompt immediately made me light up as someone who loves cooking! I don't think this fic has as much chaos as you wished for, so in that aspect I'm truly sorry :( I do hope you enjoy nonetheless because I worked really hard on this for about 3 months and had about 3 emotional breakdowns over it as well because I wanted it to be PERFECT for you
> 
> okay I'll stop rambling and let you read now!
> 
> Delta Nu - 10th floor  
> Sigma Pi - 5th floor

Yuta stared down at the spread before him. The scent of seafood and soy sauce drifted up at him. His nose twitched in anticipation before he could stop himself. Two huge bowls were sitting in the middle of the table, one with soy sauce marinated crab and the other with spicy marinated crab. All around them were plates filled with side dishes, with everything from braised half-dried pollock to steamed eggplant.

Yuta internally cursed. “That little devil,” he whispered to himself.

Next to Yuta, Taeil gave him a puzzled expression. “What is it?”

Yuta ignored the older and crossed his arms over his chest. “This means war.”

On the other side of Taeil, Jungwoo scoffed as he took a seat. “What are you talking about?” He asked. 

He started helping himself to food, reaching for a piece of marinated crab with his chopsticks, when Yuta suddenly slapped the top of his hand, making the chopsticks fall and clatter on the table. “Dude, what the fuck?”

Yuta glared at Jungwoo. “Don’t eat the _enemy’s_ food Jungwoo.”

Jungwoo stared wide-eyed at Yuta before turning to Taeil with a look that said _what the fuck is he talking about?_ Taeil only shrugged in response.

Yuta looked between his frat mates, trying to will them to understand silently, but when he was only met with confused expressions, let out an exasperated sigh. He grumpily stomped over to the window, peering out of it and looking past the side of the front lawn to the house that stood next to theirs. 

The other boys behind him just didn’t get it. Didn’t they understand war was brooding?

He heard footsteps behind him, and a quick glance told him Jaehyun and Mark had walked into the dining room. 

“What’s with him?” Mark asked nobody in particular, looking at Yuta, who had quickly whipped his head back to stare out the window. Jaehyun shrugged next to him. The elder was already used to Yuta’s antics, so he just silently walked over and sat next to Jungwoo. 

“I can’t let him get away with this. He might think he has the upper hand here, but that’s where he’s wrong. I’ll show him, I’ll show them all,” Yuta grumbled to himself, though everyone could hear him.

None of the other boys knew what Yuta was talking about, but were apprehensive to ask. They instead shifted their focus to the food on the table. The clinking of chopsticks rattling together as everyone distributed them made Yuta furrow his eyebrows in annoyance.

“Jaehyun don’t you dare put your chopsticks in that potato jorim,” Yuta called, still looking out the window.

Jaehyun, whose chopsticks were hovering right over the potatoes, paused for a moment. He quickly glanced next to him at Jungwoo, who also momentarily paused his hand movements. 

Taeil sighed. “Yuta, please just sit down and tell us what’s wrong. I want to have at least _one_ peaceful meal today.”

Yuta glared out the window once more, but relented and retreated back to the table. He sulked into the chair next to Mark and turned his glare towards the dishes on the table.

Everyone went back to digging into the food, except for Yuta, who sat still and stared at the table. A couple of other frat members came in and out of the room, grabbing some food on their way through the house. 

A little while later, Yuta spoke up. “He did this on purpose.”

“Who did?” Mark asked innocently, his spoon full of rice.

Jungwoo suddenly let out a small “aha” to himself. “The person who made this meal of course,” He chimed in, a jokingly sweet smile on his face as he shook his head. “How did I not realize it sooner, there’s literally only one answer when it comes to Yuta,” He whispered to Jaehyun. 

Yuta had the urge to fling a crab leg at Jungwoo, but Mark spoke again. “Realize what? Who made the meal? Didn’t you all order this from the Korean place off-campus?” He asked, looking between Yuta and Jungwoo.

Yuta rolled his eyes and “tch”-ed at Mark. “My dear Mark,” He started, “as much as I love the Korean place, do you really think they could make food as good as this? Only my _arch enemy_ could have done this, and he’s purposefully trying to rub it in my face.”

Mark only gave him a blank stare in response. Across from him, Jaehyun and Jungwoo let out light giggles.

“Are you seriously this worked up because Doyoung and the rest of Sigma Pi prepared this meal for us?” Jaehyun said, “You know they did this to _congratulate_ us on being greek week champions, right?”

Yuta huffed but said nothing. All around him everyone burst into chuckles. 

He groaned, but suddenly an idea burst into his head. He straightened his back and looked at Taeil excitedly.

“Wait- I just thought of the perfect plan. Taeil, you have to help me return the favor to Doyoung. We can cook Sigma Pi a huge meal for their pledge initiation party at the beginning of the semester,” He said with a triumphant smile.

Taeil looked at him with doubt. “If this is going to turn into another one of these wars between you two-”

“Please Taeil,” Yuta interrupted. “this won’t be like the others. We’ll cook a huge meal for them in return that completely tops this one and then bam, we’ve won. It will be so fun, plus, you’re the best cook we have,” he whined.

Taeil thought about it for a few moments, not saying anything

Jaehyun piped up. “Why don’t we all do it together?. Sort of like a frat bonding experience, including our new pledges too. I know you and Jungwoo were trying to think of a team bonding experience for us Taeil.”

“He makes a good point,” Jungwoo said, chewing on a slice of eggplant, sighing contently at the taste.

Yuta’s smile shifted so it was directed at Jaehyun. He clasped his hands together and sighed. “This is why I love you two.” Jaehyun and Jungwoo both grinned around their food in return.

Yuta looked back at Taeil, a pleading look in his eyes. The older spooned some more rice onto his spoon, ignoring the pout Yuta was sending him. He took a bite of his rice before shrugging his shoulders. “Well it doesn’t sound like too bad of an idea,” He said, and when Yuta pouted he couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, why not? It’ll be nice to bring Chef Moon back.”

“Yes! This is going to work out perfectly,” Yuta cheered, and finally picked up his chopsticks and dug into the food in front of him. He immediately moaned around a piece of crab, already reaching for more. As much as he didn’t want to admit it out loud, Doyoung was absolutely amazing at cooking.

“Wait, weren’t you just proclaiming Doyoung as your enemy? Why are we returning the favor?” Mark asked lightly, eyebrows still scrunched in confusion.

“Mark you seriously don’t know anything,” Jungwoo commented, and everyone laughed but Mark.

Mark still felt unsatisfied by being out of the loop, but he let it go and returned to his food like everyone else. 

He shouldn’t expect much from Delta Nu anyway.

  
  


* * *

  
  


It started right before that year’s greek week.

Yuta was in Doyoung’s room laying on his bed, his books spread out before him, taking up the expanse of the space. Doyoung was sitting at the desk, his books neatly stacked to the side while his laptop sat before him.

This was a normal occurrence for them.

Although their majors were completely different, Yuta often camped out in Doyoung’s room whenever he needed to seriously study for his exams. Mostly because he shared a room with Taeil and Mark, which made it hard to find peace and quiet for extended periods of time. Doyoung, on the other hand, had a room all to himself that Yuta could invade whenever he felt like it, much to the younger’s protests — though the protests never carried any malice.

The room was mostly silent except for the occasional scratching of a pencil against paper and the clicking of keys on a keyboard. The two college students were concentrating hard on the work before them as the late Saturday morning sunlight filtered in through the windows.

It was the end of the semester, and they had to make sure to submit all their unfinished work so none of them failed a class. Fail a class, and be ineligible to participate in greek week.

Yuta wasn’t really worried about his grades; they were solid enough for him not to fall behind. Doyoung still insisted on getting together to study the last of their material, though, and who was Yuta to say no to the younger’s pouting face?

Suddenly, Yuta sat up and slammed his notebook down on the bedsheets. “What kind of teacher assigns two research projects due in the middle of greek week?” He groaned.

“Only the worst,” Doyoung replied from his spot at the desk, voice light and unfocused.

Yuta rolled his eyes at the other’s response. “Thank you so much for the support, Dons.”

“Anytime,” Doyoung said, eyes trained on the laptop screen in front of him.

Yuta grumbled and got up from the bed. “I was being sarcastic,” He said but sighed when Doyoung still didn’t pay him any mind. He decided to leave the younger boy to his devices and instead walked out of the bedroom, wanting a quick snack break before tackling his research projects again.

In the kitchen downstairs, Yuta saw Johnny sitting at the island with Donghyuck next to him. Johnny was a senior, same as Yuta, while Donghyuck was a sophomore, like Mark. 

Yuta’s known them both for a while, having been high school friends with Johnny. Mark was practically Johnny’s little brother, and Donghyuck was Mark’s best friend since birth, so the four of them were always together. 

Even now, when they split into two different fraternities, they never grew apart. They still got together sometimes, just the four of them, for old time’s sake.

“Good morning,” Yuta greeted the pair, turning to the pantry door and opening it, starting his quest for snacks.

“Good morning,” Johnny and Donghyuck sang back in unison.

The pantry was neatly stacked, everything separated according to its purpose. Baking supplies on one shelf, spices on another, and snacks on another, just how Doyoung preferred it. Yuta scanned the snack shelf and his face lit up when he saw a bag of takoyaki flavored corn puffs. He reached in and grabbed the bag, closing the pantry door behind him.

“Hey, I didn’t know you guys had my favorite snack! I’ve been looking everywhere for these,” Yuta exclaimed, looking back at Johnny and Donghyuck at the kitchen island, the bag held up in his hand.

Donghyuck looked up from his paper to what Yuta was talking about and smiled mischievously — but then again, that’s how he always smiled. “Doyoung bought those,” He replied. “He visited this big asian market a few towns over to look for a few ingredients we didn’t have here, and came back with all our favorite snacks.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of you say takoyaki puffs were your favorite snack though, much less seen you eat them before?” Yuta asked offhandedly, looking at the bag with confusion. He shrugged, not thinking much of it. He started to make his way out of the kitchen when he heard Johnny snort behind him.

“None of us have ever said that you’re right,” Johnny called, but when Yuta waited for the other to elaborate, Johnny only went back to whatever work he was doing without another word.

_Weird_ , Yuta thought, as he ascended the stairs back to Doyoung’s room.

“Hey, Doyoung? Who’d you get these snacks-” Yuta started as he opened the door back to Doyoung’s room, but when he stepped in he saw Doyoung hunched over his still-open laptop, head in his arms, chest rising slowly as he let out soft breaths.

Yuta sighed and shook his head, a small smile on his face. He closed the door, making sure to make as little noise as possible, and walked over to the trunk sitting at the foot of the bed. He set down the bag of corn puffs on the bed and opened the lid of the trunk. He took out one of the neatly folded throw blankets, slowly unfolding the soft polyester. He walked back over to where Doyoung was sitting and gently placed the blanket over the younger’s shoulders.

“You need to stop staying up until 5 am, Doyoung,” Yuta whispered, giggling at the sight of Doyoung pursing his lips in his sleep.

_Just like a bunny_ , Yuta thought to himself.

He made sure to shut off the power of Doyoung’s laptop so the battery wouldn’t be wasted and went back to the bed to try and finish his work.

It was about an hour later when Yuta was almost finished with his first project, that Doyoung stirred, mumbling to himself.

“Did I fall asleep?” Doyoung slurred, rubbing his eyes and shaking his hair.

“Mhm,” Yuta replied from the bed, typing the ending to his conclusion quickly before closing his laptop. He slowly started gathering his books as Doyoung stretched his arms over his head. “Late night last night?”

Doyoung sighed. “You could say that. You know how I’m on the planning committee for this year’s greek week?”

Yuta hummed in affirmation, piling his books into his backpack.

“Well, Rowoon lost everything on his drive after accidentally spilling Tito’s all over his laptop, including the entire week’s itinerary. So I had to stay up all night to redo the whole thing.” Another sigh left his lips, laced with exhaustion.

Even from Yuta’s spot on the bed, he could see the slump of the younger’s shoulders, result of not getting enough sleep. He zipped up his backpack and walked over to Doyoung, thinking for a few seconds. He knew what would cheer the other up, even just a little bit.

“My hardworking Dons,” Yuta cooed. “Want to let me have a sneak peek at the lineups? It would be such a big help.”

At that, Doyoung rolled his eyes and smirked, knowing what Yuta was implying. “In your dreams. Like I would do anything that could give Delta Nu an advantage.” His eyes glinted as he looked up at Yuta. “You’ll have to win fair and square.”

Yuta wanted to giggle at how riled up the younger was, but instead, he just smiled widely.

“Oh and we will win,” He stated plainly. “Sigma Pi won’t know what’s coming.” He sent Doyoung a wink before walking to the door.

Doyoung only scoffed behind him, but he knew the other was smiling. Looks like his little plan worked.

“Get some rest! You’ll need it if you have any chance of beating us!” Yuta called halfway out the door. Hopefully, that would convince the younger to get some more rest, even if it was only another hour or two.

Yuta waved goodbye to Johnny and Donghyuck on his way past the kitchen, who waved back distractedly. 

Not even a few steps out of the house did Yuta run into the Sigma Pi president, Taeyong.

“Hey, Yuta!” Taeyong greeted him with a smile. “Studying in Doyoung’s room again?”

Yuta chuckled. “You know how my roommates can be. Anyway, Yong, can you talk to Doyoung? He’s been putting too much pressure on himself with the planning committee that he’s barely sleeping.”

Taeyong huffed through his nose, raking his hands through his hair. “I was worried about just that. He said he could handle it, and you know never to get in Doyoung’s way when he’s set on something, so I haven’t been able to say much.”

“Tell me about it,” Yuta mumbles. 

Taeyong chuckled, and Yuta joined in for a few seconds. Yuta bit his lip, thinking about the slight eyebags present under Doyoung’s eyes, and how he was barely focused while studying. “Just,” he started, looking into Taeyong’s eyes. “Try to talk to him? You’re one of the few people he actually listens to.”

“And you’re not?” Taeyong challenged one of his eyebrows raised. There was a suggestion behind his words but Yuta didn’t quite know what it was. Or, if he knew, he refused to acknowledge it.

“It’s,” Yuta hesitated, not knowing what to say. Sure, Doyoung listened to him, but Yuta doubted Doyoung took him very seriously. At least, not as much as he did Taeyong or Johnny. Thier past was a little different than everyone else’s, after all.

“Complicated,” Taeyong finished for him, a knowing look in his eyes.

Yuta hung his head, chuckling sadly. “Yeah,” he said quietly.

Taeyong reached forward and placed a hand on Yuta’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. He just wants everything to go absolutely perfect this week. And on that note, say good luck to Delta Nu for me.” He winked before walking past Yuta and into the house.

Excitement buzzed underneath Yuta’s skin. Only two more days until greek week. 

“Good luck to Sigma Pi as well!” Yuta laughed, giving Taeyong one last wave before continuing his short walk back home. 

Despite their fraternity names not being close alphabetically, they still somehow ended up right next to each other on greek row, letting all of them stay as close as possible with each other inside and outside of greek life.

_More like Doyoung’s older brother had influence in the university’s student life committee and made Sigma Theta switch houses with us. All because Donghyuck wanted to be closer to Mark._ Yuta thought to himself. 

The thought left a light smile on his face as he walked up the steps to Delta Nu. 

Right before he opened the door, he heard several voices yelling from inside. His hand paused on the doorknob after he heard what was distinctly Jungwoo’s voice yell “KILL THAT SON OF A BITCH JAEHYUN OR I SWEAR TO GOD YOU’RE SLEEPING ON THE STREET NAKED TONIGHT”.

“I should’ve stayed at Doyoung’s,” Yuta mumbled, before solemnly turning the doorknob and stepping inside the chaos. 

  
  
  
  


Bright and early on Monday morning all the fraternities and sororities were packed together in the middle of the university’s soccer field for greek week’s opening ceremony. A large raised platform was set in the grass in front of them to serve as a makeshift stage. On top of it stood the planning committee, addressing the crowd about the rules and procedures for the week.

“Now,” came Doyoung’s voice through the speakers at the side of the stage, “as you all know, cheating and cross teaming isn’t allowed. This week is supposed to celebrate all the community work that we’ve done this semester. I only want to see _friendly_ competition and good sportsmanship,” He glared in the direction of Alpha Kappa, who whooped and hollered in response. It was well known around campus that Alpha Kappa tried to win by _any_ means possible, which usually — _always_ — ended up causing problems for the planning committee.

“Let the best house win!” Doyoung finished, and everyone clapped and cheered. 

The crowd stood and started to disperse, each house walking over to their assigned tents lining the outside the soccer field. Yuta and the rest of Delta Nu, as well as Sigma Pi, stuck around as Doyoung walked off stage to rejoin them.

“Way to be subtle,” Johnny joked when Doyoung got close enough to hear.

Doyoung rolled his eyes, his sunglasses perched high on his nose. The early August heat was blaring, everyone wearing either sunglasses or hats to block the sunlight. “That was the only way to try and get the message through their thick skulls,” he replied, taking the water bottle Taeyong offered him with a small _thanks_.

“It won’t matter anyway,” Yuta piped up, smirking, “because Delta Nu is taking home the crown this year.” Everyone around him cheered, Jungwoo even blowing a raspberry in Donghyuck’s face.

“What makes you so sure?” Taeyong challenged a bright smile on his face.

Jaehyun slung an arm around Mark’s shoulder and gave the older a broad smile of his own. “Because we have the best,” he said simply. Jungwoo and Mark let out loud _yeahs!_ in agreement.

“Don’t go getting cocky, Jae,” Johnny laughed.

“It’s not being cocky!” Yuta interjected, leaning forward slightly. “It’s called confidence.”

“Overconfidence, you mean,” Taeyong teased.

Before anyone on Delta Nu could retort, Donghyuck laced his arm around Mark’s arm, pulling him out of Jaehyun’s embrace into one of his own. “We’re going to mop the floor with all of you. Just you wait,” He said. He turned his head and made a kissing gesture towards Mark, who called out loudly and craned his neck out of the way.

Everyone around the two youngest laughed, spirits lifting like the sun in the sky. Their cheeks hurt from the blaze of the sun and from the force of their laughs.

“As much as I’m looking forward to kicking Delta Nu’s ass,” Doyoung interrupted a few moments later, “We all have to get ready. The archery event starts soon.” 

  
  
  


* * *

  
  
  


“Oh you little motherfucker,” Yuta exclaimed as he slammed the door open to Doyoung’s room the day after the seafood meal was prepared for his fraternity.

“Hello to you too, Yuta,” Doyoung replied from his bed. He was resting his back against the headboard as he read a book.

Yuta ignored the other’s cheeky reply and stormed over to the bed. He was about to talk Doyoung’s ear off when he noticed the title of the book Doyoung was reading.

“Oh, is that my book?” Yuta asked, momentarily forgetting his anger.

Doyoung scrunched his eyebrows and glanced at the cover of the book before shaking his head. “No, I borrowed this from Johnny a few days ago.”

Yuta nodded. “Yeah, I lent it to him a while ago. It’s really interesting. Good choice.”

Doyoung laughed, looking up at Yuta with squinted eyes. “I didn’t know you could read,” he jabbed.

“Haha. You’re so funny Malfoy,” Yuta replied, rolling his eyes. He got onto the bed and folded his legs under him while he leaned back against the sheets.

Doyoung only continued to laugh. “That’s the highest compliment you’ve ever given me. Just a minute ago I was a little motherfucker.” He closed the book and placed it on his nightstand. “Care to explain that?”

Yuta shot up and glared at Doyoung, remembering why he came to the other’s room in the first place.

“First of all, fuck you. Second of all, the food was delicious, thank you. Third of all-”

“Wait wait,” Doyoung cut him off. “Let me guess, _fuck you_?”

Yuta pouted, angry that Doyoung was not taking him seriously. “As a matter of fact, no. I was going to say don't think you can get away with this. I know your little _scheme_ , and it won’t work.”

Doyoung laughed again, amused by Yuta’s actions. “There isn’t any scheme Yuta. I just wanted to do something nice for Delta Nu as congratulations, as did the rest of Sigma Pi. So we thought we’d cook you all a big meal. It was a lot of fun to do together with the members. Donghyuck is not as incompetent as he makes himself seem.”

“I could’ve told you that,” Yuta grumbled. “The little devil is an evil mastermind.”

Doyoung let out a small chuckle, and a few moments later a soft knock came from the door followed by a muffled, “Doyoung?”

“Speak of the devil,” Doyoung whispered, wriggling his eyebrows at Yuta. “Come in!” Doyoung called to the door.

Donghyuck opened the door and walked inside, not even bothering to close the door behind him. “Johnny was-” He started, but stopped when he saw Yuta sitting adjacent to Doyoung. “Am I interrupting something?” He smirked, looking between Yuta and Doyoung.

“Very funny kid,” Yuta rolled his eyes, unfolding his legs to rest his feet against the floor.

“Johnny was what, Donghyuck?” Doyoung asked, already moving to get off the bed.

Donghyuck huffed, unsatisfied that his teasing didn’t have a big effect on the older frat boys. “Johnny was calling for you in the kitchen. Wanted your help.”

Doyoung groaned, standing up from his sheets. “Didn’t I already tell him how to use the oven? Can’t even have an hour of peace in this place.” 

Yuta shook his head with a small laugh, standing up alongside Doyoung. “An hour of peace in Delta Nu means someone probably died.” 

He followed Doyoung and Donghyuck out of the room, making sure to close the door behind him, as Doyoung liked it.

The three of them walked into the kitchen to find Johnny crouched in front of the oven with a perplexed look on his face, and with Jaehyun leaning against the countertop behind him.

“Why is there an unauthorized Delta Nu in my kitchen,” Doyoung deadpanned when he caught sight of Jaehyun, who only sent him an innocent, dimpled smile in return.

“Don’t be like that, Doyoung. Jae’s nice,” Johnny replied, standing up to his full height after letting out a heavy sigh. “I seriously do not understand the controls on this fancy oven. There are way too many buttons.”

Doyoung scoffed and sent Yuta a _see what I have to deal with?_ look. Yuta giggled at the younger’s turmoil, watching as he walked over and started to explain the intricacies that went into having such a high tech oven to Johnny.

“You might want to leave,” Donghyuck spoke up from beside Yuta. “Once he starts going on about the mechanics of kitchen appliances, he won’t stop for a while. There’s no point in waiting around.”

Yuta hummed at Donghyuck’s words, smiling at the sight of Johnny vigorously nodding along to everything Doyoung said, though it seemed that as the younger kept talking the information stopped penetrating Johnny’s brain, entering one ear and flying out of the other.

“Come on Jaehyun, let’s leave those two and get out of here,” Yuta said, beckoning his head to the front door. Jaehyun nodded and gave Johnny’s arm a pat before heading out of the house with Yuta.

“Do you still want to help me cook them a meal?” Yuta asked Jaehyun once they were on the pavement out of the house.

“Are you kidding me? Johnny kept teasing me about how delicious their food was, and I couldn’t even deny it because he was right. It is so _on_ ,” Jaehyun replied, smiling mischievously.

Yuta smirked. “Good.”

  
  


**

  
  


“This was a bad idea.”

“Don’t say that! It will be just fine,” Yuta assured, staring at the pile of grocery bags on top of the dining table with an overly bright smile.

Jungwoo looked at him skeptically from his spot on the couch. “When have your ideas ever turned out _just fine_?” Jaehyun, sitting next to Jungwoo, laughed loudly at his boyfriend’s comment.

Before Yuta could rebuttal Jungwoo’s accusations, Taeil walked out of the kitchen with a striped apron tied around his waist. Embroidered on the chest area of the apron were the words _Kiss the Cook_ with a pair of lips stitched next to it. 

At the sight of it, Yuta, Jungwoo, and Jaehyun burst out laughing. 

“Oh my god that’s priceless,” Jungwoo said between chuckles. He brought his phone up and snapped a photo before Taeil could chastise him. “I’m posting this on instagram,” he snickered.

“Get your laughs out now, because we have work to do,” Taeil said, calm in the face of chaos. “Jungwoo, go call Mark down here. Jaehyun, start unpacking the bags. Yuta, in the kitchen with me.”

The three men all went their separate ways with giggles, Jungwoo even going over and planting a kiss on Taeil’s cheek before retreating out of the room. “I’m just listening to the apron,” He responded when Taeil gave him an appalled look and a quirk of his eyebrow.

Jaehyun walked to the dining room table while Yuta followed Taeil into the kitchen, excited to get cooking.

“So what’s on the menu for tonight, Chef Moon?” Yuta asked, hopping on top of the countertop. 

“I was thinking of braised chicken in a slow cooker. It’s simple enough that even you can’t mess it up,” Taeil responded, back turned to Yuta. When he faced Yuta again he immediately smacked Yuta’s thigh and ushered him off the countertop. 

Yuta jumped off with a wince. “What was that for?” He sulked.

“I don’t want your dirty ass on my countertop while we cook,” Taeil said simply, turning around to the cabinet next to the refrigerator. He opened it and took out another set of aprons, handing them out for Yuta to take.

Yuta grabbed the aprons, took one out of the pile, and started putting it on. He wrapped the strap around his waist tightly and tied it in front with a bow, making sure his waist was accentuated.

“Hey, Jaehyun!” He called to the younger in the dining room. “How do I look?” He asked with a cheeky smile, jutting out his hip and resting all of his weight on his left leg, hands on his hips.

Jaehyun looked up from the packaged meat he was holding and laughed at the sight of Yuta. “Nice waist. Really sexy.”

Yuta blew him a kiss and grabbed another apron to hand over to him. Jaehyun tied the apron around his waist in a similar way, and the two men laughed at each other for a few moments before Taeil beckoned Yuta back to the kitchen.

“Found our baby lion taking a nap,” Jungwoo announced when he walked back into the living room, a sleepy Mark at his heels. “Isn’t he so cute with his hair all tousled up?” He cooed at the younger, messing up Mark’s hair even more with his hand.

“Jungwoo,” Mark whined, bringing his hands up to try and fix the mess Jungwoo created, though nothing he could do could truly tame the mane that formed out of his soft brown locks.

“Mark, how about you start with washing the vegetables?” Taeil suggested, voice softening when talking to the younger, seeing how he was still blinking away the sleep from his eyes.

Mark nodded and walked over to the dining table where Jaehyun already unpackaged all the vegetables they bought at the supermarket. He wordlessly grabbed them and set off for the sink behind Yuta.

“Yuta,” Taeil said next, addressing the man, “Can I trust you to cut up the chicken?”

“You can trust me with anything,” Yuta confidently assured, making his way over to the dining table as well. “They don’t call me the takoyaki prince for nothing.”

“What does that have to do with anything we’re doing?” Jungwoo asked, plopping down onto the couch once more, taking his phone out, probably to text Kun or Ten.

Yuta ignored Jungwoo and grabbed several packages of chicken from the table. He placed them on the countertop near the slow cooker, ready to start cutting.

He blankly stared at the packaged meat for a few seconds, unsure of what to do next. “Uhm, Taeil?” 

“Yes, Yuta?” Taeil asked from the spice cabinet.

“Where are the cutting boards?”

Taeil sighed, abandoning the spice cabinet and walking over to another cabinet just next to the microwave. He opened it and took out several cutting boards, giving one to Yuta. “Need I tell you where the knives are?”

Yuta shook his head quickly, flashing Taeil a bright smile with a small _thanks_ before moving to retrieve a knife

  
  


**

  
  


For the first twenty minutes, everything was going smoothly. 

Taeil and Jaehyun were working on peeling and cutting all of the vegetables while Yuta worked on the chicken. Mark retreated to the couch after his job and was leaning his head against Jungwoo’s shoulder, who was petting the younger’s hair softly.

After the first twenty minutes, however, well… 

Yuta apparently didn’t comprehend that it wasn’t good to put a pot on a burning stove with no water in it for a prolonged period of time. 

Forgetting about the large flame under the empty pot, Yuta turned around to search for a water bottle to fill it up. He walked over to the pantry, where they kept a stack of water bottles for cooking. 

He bent over and grabbed a water bottle, and when he stood up again there was a body right next to him. 

Jumping with a small yelp, Yuta dropped the water bottle in shock, the plastic slightly bouncing off the tiles of the kitchen floor. Processing the owner of the body that scared him, Yuta glared.

“Jisung, do not scare me like that,” Yuta grumbled, bending over again to retrieve the water bottle.

“Sorry Yuta,” Jisung said, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. “I just came by looking for Mark. Have you seen him?

Yuta jerked his head behind his shoulder. “He’s on the couch with Jungwoo,” he replied.

“Thanks,” Jisung said and was about to take a step towards the living room when he paused. “Hey, what’s that smell?”

“Smell?” Yuta asked, taking in a big whiff of air through his nose. Sure enough, he was met with the stench of something burning.

“Why is there a pot burning on my stove?” came Taeil’s voice from the other side of the kitchen.

Yuta suddenly remembered what he was supposed to be doing, and what he left behind. He shrunk as small as possible and jumped behind Jisung, using the tall boy as a human shield from Taeil’s wrath.

“I have no idea!” He said with as much nonchalance as he could, but the glare Taeil sent his way told him Taeil wasn’t having any of his bullshit.

Taeil quickly turned off the flame under the pot and took the pot off of the stove. The entire bottom of the pot was burnt black and warped.

“You know we can’t use this anymore right?” Taeil asked.

Yuta’s guilt grew sharper and sharper as he hid behind Jisung, who was just looking between Taeil and Yuta with wide eyes, unsure of what to do or say.

“You do know this was a brand new pot, right?” Taeil continued.

Yuta winced. He didn’t know what to say.

“Taeil, it’s alright,” Jungwoo soothed, suddenly appearing in the kitchen. He walked over and took the pot from Taeil’s hands. “Yuta will be more careful next time.” He sent his own glare in Yuta’s direction to solidify his point.

Sighing, Taeil nodded his head and walked over to where Yuta was still hiding behind Jisung. Yuta quickly pushed Jisung between him and Taeil, cowering back.

“Yuta, I just want to get to the pantry,” Taeil stated. “Plus, you’re scaring the baby.”

Blinking, Yuta slowly lowered his hands and let go of Jisung’s shirt which he was gripping so tightly. “Sorry bud,” Yuta said softly, patting Jisung on the shoulder.

Jisung shook his head quickly, stumbling over his words. “It’s okay, really. Don’t worry about it.”

Yuta smiled at the younger’s babbling, gently leading them both out of Taeil’s way so the older could have access to the pantry.

Jisung walked off to talk to Mark, and Yuta walked back over to where he was cutting up the chicken by the stove. He shook off his previous mistake and grabbed another pot, careful to pour water into it before turning the flame on.

“Shit, we’re out of olive oil,” Taeil cursed from the pantry. “I’ll have to run to the store to get some more.” 

He turned to look at Jaehyun and Yuta. “Can I trust you two to handle things while I’m gone?”

Yuta smiled brightly, “Of course! We’re completely trustworthy.” He wrapped an arm around Jaehyun’s shoulder. The other grinned broadly and nodded along.

Taeil stared at the two of them for a beat, before turning his head towards the living room. “Jungwoo! Take care of these two until I get back,” and with that, he slipped out the kitchen.

“You got it,” Jungwoo called back as Taeil walked out of the front door.

Yuta and Jaehyun stood frozen, scandalized looks on their faces.

“I can’t believe he doesn’t trust us,” Yuta sulked, letting go of Jaehyun’s shoulder to check on the soup stock he was boiling.

Jaehyun giggled, setting down the knife he was holding. “Can you really blame him?”

Yuta stuck his tongue out at Jaehyun in lieu of a response. He directed his attention back to the pot, making sure everything was running smoothly before turning away to grab the slow cooker.

A few minutes later, Yuta finally figured out how to plug the slow cooker in and turn it on.

“Have you two burned down the kitchen yet?”

Jungwoo was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, leaning against the door frame.

“Of course not,” Yuta said indignantly. “I was just about to prepare the chicken as Taeil asked before putting it in the slow cooker.”

Jungwoo looked at him before addressing Jaehyun. “Is it a good idea to let him near the stove again?”

Jaehyun shrugged, giggling at Yuta’s offended squawk. “I say the worst already happened, so no more harm can be done, right?”

Jungwoo hung his head before heaving a heavy sigh. “Somehow I think you saying that will bring us more harm.”

Yuta walked over to where Jungwoo was standing and put on his best cute face. “Jungwoo,” he cooed. “You can trust me.”

He was met with a doubtful look from Jungwoo, but the other still smiled and turned back to the living room. “I don’t get paid enough for this.”

“You don’t get paid at all,” Jaehyun commented.

“Thanks for the _support_ babe!” Jungwoo called from the other room. 

From their spots in the kitchen, Yuta and Jaehyun could see Mark and Jisung in deep conversation over something until Jungwoo deliberately sat between the two, asking for attention.

“How can you deal with him?” Yuta asked, turning to Jaehyun, but instead of an answer, he was met with Jaehyun’s eyes still lingering on the doorway to the living room, filled to the brim with what could only be described as fondness.

“What’d you say?” Jaehyun said distractedly, still not looking at the doorway.

Yuta’s eyes softened and he chuckled to himself. 

“Forget I asked,” he whispered to himself.

  
  


**

  
  


Taeil arrived about half an hour later. He was expecting to come back to a burned kitchen, but it seemed Yuta and Jaehyun were managing just fine. The two of them didn’t notice him at first, too focused on their respective tasks. Yuta was cooking the chicken in a saute pan while Jaehyun added spices to the boiling stock before lowering the heat to a simmer. The kitchen was quiet except for the sizzling of oil in the pan and the bubbling of the boiling stock. The piercing smell of pepper and spices filled the air as Taeil walked in.

The warm atmosphere brought a smile to his face as he set down the grocery bag on the table.

Yuta inspected the chicken, deeming that it practically looked like how Taeil told him it was supposed to look. He figured adding lemon to it wouldn’t hurt, and quickly turned around to retrieve some from the refrigerator. He wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings and almost completely collided with Taeil, who was right behind him.

“Taeil!” Yuta exclaimed, shocked by the other’s sudden presence. His heart rate picked up considerably from almost running straight into someone twice. _Seriously, two times in one day?_ he thought to himself.

Taeil, seemingly unfazed, peeked behind Yuta and at the pan on the stove. “That looks like it’s coming along well. Good job Yuta.” He nodded at Yuta, giving the other a proud smile.

Yuta sent him a blinding smile of his own, preening under the praise. He made for the refrigerator to get the lemon, deciding not to tell Taeil about how he had to restart the chicken two times because the first time he didn’t add enough butter and the second time he added too much.

After finding the lemon with relative ease, Yuta turned back to the stove, eager to get back to work. Taeil already walked away to put away the things he bought. It seemed he found a few other things they forgot on their initial grocery store run, moving to sort them with their other ingredients.

"Did you peel the potatoes yet?" Taeil called from the kitchen island.

Jaehyun shook his head as he walked past Taeil to put away the spices he grabbed.

"Could you then ask Jungwoo if he can do it, Jaehyun?" Taeil asked, moving over to the sink to wash his hands.

He didn't get a verbal response, but he knew Jaehyun left the kitchen and walked into the living room, because when he turned around the younger was leaning over the back of the couch, chatting with Mark animatedly as Jungwoo pouted next to them.

Not even a minute later, Jaehyun walked back into the kitchen with Jungwoo at his heels.

"So? Where are these potatoes?" Jungwoo said, trying to act aloof, but Taeil knew it was just because he wanted to relax for a little while longer. The other still loved to help the other members of the frat whenever he could, sometimes being their most important pillar of support.

"Right there on the counter. Thanks, Jungwoo," Taeil responded, giving the other a grateful smile.

Jungwoo grabbed the potatoes as well as a bowl and a vegetable peeler and sat down at the island to get working. Jaehyun walked over and ruffled his hair before placing down a cutting board only 5 feet to the left of Jungwoo so he could start cutting vegetables for their various salads and appetizers.

Yuta was just about finished with the chicken when Taeil walked over to him again. Under his breath, he whispered to Yuta, "How long you think until Jungwoo starts trying to seduce him?"

Yuta snorted before he could help himself. He glanced behind him at Jaehyun focusing on the vegetables before him whereas Jungwoo was lazily peeling the potatoes while stealing looks at Jaehyun.

"I give it no more than ten minutes," Yuta whispered back to Taeil.

It was Taeil's turn to snort, rolling his eyes. " _Please_. Jungwoo will be done with those potatoes in two minutes, and then he won’t have an excuse to not immediately latch himself onto Jaehyun."

“You’re right,” Yuta said with a laugh, shaking his head lightly. He turned his focus away from the couple and to the slow cooker that was resting on the counterstop off to his left. 

"So how do we do this thing?" He asked, raising his eyebrows in confusion. He looked at the several buttons on the front of the cooker, none of them making a lick of sense. "We just put the chicken in there and let it cook for 2 hours?"

"Pretty much," Taeil responded, grating cheese into a bowl. 

Yuta nodded thoughtfully, taking in Taeil's words. "You got it," he grinned, excited.

He walked over to where Jaehyun was cutting scallions into thin pieces for garnish as well as longer pieces for their scallion salad. Jungwoo already moved one seat over, having finished peeling the potatoes.

"Woah that was fast," Yuta commented, praising Jungwoo's speed as he saw the huge bowl filled to the top with neatly peeled potatoes.

Jungwoo scoffed and smirked. "Of course. I'm not as completely incompetent in the kitchen as you."

Yuta glared at Jungwoo. "Don't be mean," He pouted. He was going to tease Jungwoo for moving yet another seat over while they talked, but he decided against it. He grabbed the carrots and onions next to Jaehyun's cutting board and walked away before Jungwoo could try any funny business in front of him.

There was a clatter of a knife on a cutting board, and Yuta kept his focus straight ahead, ignoring the soft, obscene sounds coming from behind him. _Like bunnies_ , he thought, rolling his eyes.

He opened the slow cooker and dumped all the ingredients inside, closing the lid with a small click. Feeling satisfied with his work, he clapped his hands. Now all that was left were the appetizers.

"Can I cut the potatoes?" Yuta asked Taeil eagerly, already making his way to grab the bowl from the marble island. Jaehyun and Jungwoo were nowhere to be found, but Yuta had a suspicion they went back to their shared room upstairs.

"Go ahead," Taeil responded from his spot in front of the stove.  
  


As Yuta went to grab another knife to cut the potatoes, Mark and Jisung appeared in the kitchen doorway, joined by another one of their new pledges, Jaemin. They all had big smiles on their faces.

"We want to help!" said Jaemin enthusiastically. Jisung and Mark nodded next to him.

"The more the merrier!" Yuta smiled, ruffling both of the boys' hair as they walked past him to grab aprons from the closet.

Once the two boys had their aprons tied neatly around their waists, they stood patiently off to the side, like eager assistants awaiting orders.

Jisung stared blankly around the kitchen for a few moments, before turning to Yuta. "By the way, where did Jungwoo and Jaehyun go?" He asked.

Taeil laughed from his spot at the stove. "Where did they go I wonder," Taeil said, not answering Jisung's question at all. 

Mark and Yuta sniggered, already used to the couple's tendencies, but Jisung, as the newbie, had no idea what was happening. He just blinked several times and tilted his head to the side, furrowing his eyebrows. Jaemin only cooed and patted the youngest’s hair affectionately.

"You will know in time young padawan," Yuta assured, patting the younger on the shoulder. "In the meantime, help Taeil with whatever he's doing. Mark, you help me cut these potatoes into pieces. Jaemin, you can be in charge of the soup."

The boys nodded and went their separate ways, following their respective hyungs to different spots in the kitchen, itching to get their hands working.

The atmosphere in the kitchen turned light as the five of them worked side by side.

Jisung was clumsy and was sometimes more of a hindrance to Taeil than a help, but Taeil never got angry with him and was very patient. He appreciated the youngest's enthusiasm above all else.

Jaemin was a great asset in his own right, finishing the soup expertly with no mistakes. He didn’t need much assistance from Taeil, and would even help the older out by coaxing Jisung away from whatever he was doing if it looked as if he was about to make a big mess. Jisung would always pout and apologize, but Jaemin and Taeil reassured him every time.

Mark and Yuta on the other hand were having a blast together, laughing. They chatted animatedly as they cut the potatoes, talking about the latest episode of their favorite anime. They even started arguing over which character should’ve won _the fall selection_ , and if it wasn’t for Mark almost chopping his own fingers off instead of a potato, their argument would’ve most likely escalated for several hours.

Taeil usually hated chatter and disturbance in his kitchen, but something about the smiles of those around him made him let it go for the time being. He really missed cooking, and it was really heartwarming to do it all together with the members of his frat. Even if it was for something as silly as Yuta’s competitive spirit.

If he noticed none of Mark or Yuta’s potatoes were cut evenly, he didn't say a word.

  
  


**

  
  


"Is everything set for the party tonight?" Doyoung asked Donghyuck.

The younger paused in his movements to put on his shoes, looking back at Doyoung, who was leaning over the back of the couch, with a roll of his eyes.

"Yes, Doyoung,” He replied, “I double and triple checked everything just like you asked me to. It's only a party for the new pledges. They've already been initiated, it's not like we have to worry about losing any of them."

Doyoung scrunched his eyebrows, still just a tiny bit paranoid. He writhed his fingers at his sides, about to start another rant.

Fortunately, or more so, unfortunately, Donghyuck noticed it and practically fell in his attempt to finish tying up his laces and stand up. "It will be _fine,_ Doyoung. Trust me a little, okay?"

With that, Doyoung sighed and nodded. "Okay," and with that, Donghyuck opened the front door and stepped outside, closing it behind him. Once outside, he let out a sigh at the older’s antics and nagging.

He turned and walked down the front path of the house, ready to go over to Delta Nu and steal Mark so they could head to the department store for last-minute supplies.

He hummed to himself as he walked up to the Delta Nu house, and was about to let himself inside when the door opened on its own to reveal Taeil, seemingly ready to head out.

"Hey, Taeil! Is Mark home?" Donghyuck asked sweetly.

Taeil greeted Donghyuck with a smile and a nod. "He is, but unfortunately he's currently napping on Jungwoo's shoulder. I think he was up all night again, so maybe you should let him sleep a little more."

Donghyuck immediately deflated, a pout forming on his face. "But he promised we could hang out today."

Taeil cooed at the younger, stepping out of the house and closing the door behind him. "You'll have time later."

"Hmph, okay," Donghyuck sullenly agreed. As much as he wanted to go in and wake Mark, he knew the other hadn't been getting enough sleep as of late, and a nap was definitely something he needed right now. Instead, he directed his attention to Taeil. "So, where are you going?"

"Just to the grocery store," Taeil responded, making his way towards his car that was parked on the street.

"That sounds like fun! You think you could drop me off at the department store that's across the street?" Donghyuck asked, hopeful at the prospect of not having to use the campus bus.

Taeil nodded and gestured for Donghyuck to follow him. “Fine by me.”

"Thank you so much!" Donghyuck said gratefully, skipping over to the car and opening the door to the passenger side so he could plop down into the seat. 

As they started driving down the road and out of campus, Donghyuck spoke up again. "So what do you need to get from the store?"

"We ran out of a few things for the meal we're making so I'm going to get some more," Taeil responded, fiddling with the radio for a few seconds, trying to find the radio station he liked. When soft R&B started playing through the speakers, he directed his attention back to the road.

Donghyuck quirked an eyebrow in interest. "Meal, you say? For who?"

Taeil blinked rapidly for a few seconds, glancing between Donghyuck and the road before chuckling. "Oh just for ourselves," He said, but Donghyuck was suspicious. He squinted his eyes at Taeil, trying to will the answer out of the older with just his gaze. When that didn’t work he spoke up.

"You know you can't lie to me Taeil," Donghyuck said cutely, poking the older's arm. He even pouted for maximum cuteness effect, knowing nobody could say no to him, especially the older frat boy.

Taeil sighed, shaking his head slightly. "It's a surprise, Hyuck. That's all I can say."

Donghyuck drew back and crossed his arms, clearly unsatisfied with the vague answer Taeil gave him, but he decided to let it be. If anything, he could pry the answer out of Mark later when he saw him.

He looked out the window at the passing buildings as the only sounds in the car that could be heard were the soft humming of a pop ballad.

_Interesting. Really interesting._

  
  


**

  
  


The click as the front door to Sigma Pi unlocked and opened was music to Yuta’s ears. He smirked and bent down to pick up the container he placed on the ground.

"Are you ready?" He whispered behind him. The rest of the Delta Nu boys were crouching behind him, all holding containers that held the food they worked hard to prepare. They all nodded in response, eager to get into the house.

It wasn’t unusual for people to be wandering around after dark, especially on greek row, but the boys of Delta Nu wanted to make sure nobody saw them during their top secret mission.

Yuta quietly opened the door wider, careful to do it slowly so it didn't suddenly creak. He tiptoed his way into the dark entrance hallway, everyone else following suit in a single file line.

"If I'm right, they should all be downstairs right now, which gives us at least ten minutes. Let's move quickly." He hurriedly whispered before moving further into the hallway.

They all padded into the kitchen, turning on the lights at the lowest level. They placed all the containers they were holding on the dining room table, unpacking them as quietly as they could.

It seemed easy enough, but they hadn’t thought to bring any of their own dishes, so they needed to go into Sigma Pi's cabinets to borrow theirs. This, unfortunately, prompted more noise and a more likely chance of someone hearing them, but them all working together made the process faster.

“Are you sure this isn’t breaking and entering?” Jisung asked, unsure about the whole situation but going along with it because he didn’t want to miss out on anything.

Jungwoo waved his hand. “It’s not breaking and entering if the door was unlocked,” He dismissed.

Jisung tilted his head, “But the door wasn’t-”

His sentence was interrupted by Mark setting down one of the plates he grabbed on the marble countertop a little too harshly, the _clink!_ resonating loudly throughout the entire room. 

Everyone immediately stopped and looked at Mark with their eyes blown wide. The room fell completely silent, and even the cool breezes from outside stopped their whistling.

They all stood with bated breaths, frozen in their spots like ice sculptures. A few seconds later they could hear the padding of footsteps on the stairs leading up from the basement.

Yuta panicked and tried to come up with an escape plan as soon as possible. Not knowing what else to do, he whispered, "Hide!" to everyone, frantically gesturing them to crouch behind the kitchen island as fast as possible. 

Not even a moment after they successfully hid, Johnny emerged from the doorway and peeked into the kitchen.

The whole of Delta Nu crouched as close together as possible, their muscles taut as they tried to not move an inch. They held their breaths, ears straining to hear any sound of movement or noise from the visitor.

“Huh, why is the light on?” Johnny mumbled to himself, taking another step towards the kitchen.

Everyone in Delta Nu stared wide-eyed at each other, identical looks of panic on their faces. There wasn’t really a very good explanation for why they would be breaking and entering their neighbor frat house without giving away their plan.

Johnny paused his footsteps once he was next to the light switch on the wall. Silence loomed in the room like a fog, the tension so thick they could’ve reached out and cut it with a knife. It heavily choked on the boys of Delta Nu, but Johnny only yawned and flipped the light switch off, completely unaware of the tension that lay thick over the room like a blanket.

Nobody in Delta Nu dared to move, even after the door to the staircase clicked close. It wasn’t until the padding of Johnny’s footsteps faded as he went back down into the basement that Yuta let out a hot sigh of relief.

Jisung whispered, “We’re definitely criminals.”

Jaehyun only laughed lightly and stood up first to get back to work. Everyone else followed quickly, now extremely wary of any noise.

It only took them another five minutes until they successfully set the table and laid out all the dishes in the middle, ready to be served.

Yuta stepped back and admired their handiwork.

“I’m proud of us, guys,” He whispered triumphantly, looking to his left and right where the rest of the Delta Nu boys were standing with him.

“This is nice and all,” Taeil responded, “but let’s get out of here before they come upstairs and find us.”

Yuta nodded and with the rest of Delta Nu at his heels, they slipped back out of the front door and into the grass of the front lawn. Yuta, Jungwoo, and Jaemin immediately turned to the left towards the bushes planted in front of the dining room windows.

“What are you three doing?” Mark asked confused, still on the path that led to the street.

Jungwoo ushered him towards the bushes. “We’re going to spy and see what Sigma Pi thinks of our meal,” He replied as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Won’t they see us?” Jisung asked from behind Mark, more curious than anxious now that he finally loosened up to the antics of Delta Nu.

Yuta shook his head. “The bushes will cover us. But if you all continue to stand there in the middle of the path then they will definitely see you and our cover will be blown.”

That was enough to get Jisung and Mark to join Yuta and Jungwoo by the bushes, with Jaehyun and Taeil not far behind. From their position in front of the windows, they could clearly see into the dining room and part of the kitchen. 

Now all they had to do was wait.

It seemed they didn’t have to wait for long, because almost immediately after they crouched behind the bushes, the door that led to the basement opened. The members of Sigma Pi all filed out, chatting with each other as the new pledges emerged through the door behind them. 

Their newest pledge of the semester, a freshman Yuta knew as Chenle, seemed to already be comfortable with the other pledges from the previous semester, chatting excitedly with them. Chenle was best friends with Jisung from high school, so Yuta already knew quite a few things about the boy despite him not joining Delta Nu.

Doyoung, at the head of the group, walked into the kitchen and switched on the lights for the dining room. He immediately froze at the sight before him, and Jungwoo and Jaehyun couldn’t help but snicker.

“Oh my god the look on his face,” Jaehyun wheezed.

“Priceless!” Jungwoo agreed, chuckling.

Johnny and Taeyong walked into the dining room after Doyoung, and the both of them also stopped and stared blankly at the entire meal laid out before them neatly on the table. Now it was Yuta and Mark’s turn to laugh.

"Oh my god this was the best idea ever," Yuta whispered. He wished he could take a snapshot of the look on Doyoung’s face in that moment, because it was something worth keeping forever.

Not knowing what else to do, Doyoung and the other members of Sigma Pi took their seats at the dining room table and decided to enjoy the meal given to them.

The boys of Delta Nu couldn't hear what they were saying inside, but their expressions alone were enough to know that they thought the food was delicious.

"I think we should go before anybody sees us," Jaemin said a few moments later.

"He's right," Taeil agreed, and as a group, they slowly sneaked off the front lawn and scurried back to the Delta Nu house.

Once they were all inside they all let out huge sighs of relief, grateful to not have been caught. The thrill of their mission left smiles on their faces.

"Great work Delta Nu," Yuta addressed them all. "We've proven once again who's the best fraternity on campus."

Mark, Jaemin, and Jisung cheered while Jungwoo, Jaehyun, and Taeil just rolled their eyes. They still had smiles on their faces though, as nobody could deny Yuta when his face was that bright and excited.

"So who's going to help me clean the kitchen?" Taeil asked, breaking the moment of celebration.

Everyone around him froze and chuckled nervously.

"Jaehyun and I have some studying to do!" Jungwoo suddenly piped up, and without waiting for a response from Taeil, grabbed ahold of Jaehyun's arm and dragged him up the stairs.

The rest of the members watched as they left, trying their best not to make direct eye contact with Taeil in the hopes he wouldn't pick one of them to help him.

Unfortunately, Taeil already had his eyes set on Yuta.

Yuta immediately brought his hands up when he saw Taeil’s eyes zero in on him. "Taeil, come on. You're a big strong man! I'm but a weak soul in comparison. Surely you don't need my help.”

"Oh but Yuta," Taeil smiled. "This was your grand idea in the first place. It’s only fair."

Yuta hung his head and sulked, knowing he couldn’t protest any further. "Fine," he pouted.

Taeil turned around with a smile and started heading off to the kitchen to clean up. "Oh, and Jisung you're helping too." He called over his shoulder.

Jisung stared widely at Taeil, taken aback by the sudden calling of his name. "Me?" He pointed to his chest.

"Newbie helps clean. It's a rule," Jaemin whispered softly, patting Jisung on the shoulder sympathetically before walking up the stairs, Mark in tow behind him.

Yuta and Jisung had matching pouts as they followed Taeil into the kitchen.

"So much for the rest of my Friday night," Yuta said.

  
  


**

Doyoung stood frozen in the entryway to the kitchen, not knowing how to process the scene before him. The entire table was set with various dishes, all perfectly laid out, in _his_ own dishes nonetheless. An enticing aroma lifted off the food and entered Doyoung’s nostrils, tickling his tastebuds. He could smell chicken as well as several spices, his mouth practically watering at the scent.

“Looks like he retaliated,” Taeyong commented next to Doyung, sending him a knowing smile.

Doyoung couldn’t help but furrow his eyebrows, crossing his arms over his chest. “I expected him to, but not like _this_. How did they even get in?”

“You know,” Johnny piped up from the other side of Taeyong. “When I came upstairs earlier, the lights in the kitchen were on. I didn’t really think any of it, assuming one of us just forgot to turn them off. It might’ve been them, though.”

“Oh my god,” Doyoung drawled, rubbing a hand over his face. “They could’ve just as easily been _robbers_ , Johnny.”

Johnny shrugged with an easygoing smile. “But they weren’t, so it’s fine. Plus, now we have a delicious meal to eat.”

Doyoung opened his mouth to respond, but Donghyuck cut him off.

“Let’s just enjoy the food before it gets cold. I don’t know about you, but I’m practically starving.” He was the first to move away from the group and take a seat at the table, eagerly grabbing a pair of chopsticks.

The new pledges followed in Donghyuck’s footsteps and took their won seats at the table. Johnny and Taeyong followed suit, but Doyoung stayed rooted in his place.

He glared at the set table and the various dishes that were placed on top. “If he means war, I’ll give him war,” He declared.

Taeyong sighed from his seat. “Idiots,” he whispered.

  
  


**

  
  


The intro to Yummy by Justin Bieber sounded loudly throughout the first floor of the Delta Nu house.

“You seriously need to change that doorbell Mark,” Taeil said, who at least had the sense to look sheepish.

The song came from the modified doorbell, which played the tune whenever someone pushed the button.

“It wasn’t me who installed it, Lucas did. I don’t know how to change it,” Mark replied, laughing nervously.

"I'll get it!" Jaemin called from his spot on the couch. He stood up and walked over to the front door, opening it up for the guests, the melody of Yummy subsequently stopping.

On the other side of the door stood Johnny with an easygoing smile on his face.

"Hey Jaem," He greeted, easily stepping around Jaemin and walking into the house. Behind him, the rest of Sigma Pi slowly started to file into the house, all of them wearing matching grins as they greeted Jaemin in turn.

"Hey," Jaemin replied to them all casually, not really taking notice of the mischief hidden behind their smiles, or not really caring. Once they were all inside, he closed the door and followed them into the dining room where everyone was gathered.

"What's under the foil, Doyoung?" Taeil asked, looking at the several trays covered in foil that the members of Sigma Pi were carrying.

Doyoung smiled, but Yuta, who was right by Taeil, immediately noticed the cockiness lying underneath.

"We know how big this party is every year, and what party is complete with good food, right?" Doyoung said, acting as if he was a traveling salesman trying to sell Yuta heated underwear.

Jungwoo leaned his upper body forward to peer at the tin foil trays, but nothing could tell him what was under the foil. "So what did you bring?" He asked, curiosity peaked.

Doyoung and the other members of Sigma Pi put the trays down on the dining room table and carefully took the foil off the top of each one.

In a Valley Girl accent, Johnny cheered, "We made Tapas!" 

Taeyong and Donghyuck clapped excitedly, admiring their handiwork. Jeno just looked happy to be there while Renjun and Chenle shared an amused glance with each other.

The members of Delta Nu gazed wide-eyed at the trays filled with different assortments of tapas. One tray had several cheeses skewered on toothpicks accompanied with olives, while another tray had sliced baguettes topped with everything from salmon and cream cheese to pastrami and tomato.

“Wait, did you just say _In a Valley Girl accent_ out loud?” Jungwoo asked, peering at Johnny.

“No, what do you mean?” Johnny asked, a playful smile on his face.

“Way to break the fourth wall Jungwoo,” Yuta mumbled.

Jungwoo only rolled his eyes and plucked an olive from the nearest tray into his mouth, unapologetically wiggling his eyebrows when Doyoung sent him a glare.

Mark turned to look at Yuta, a confused expression clear on his face, but Yuta just shushed him and shook his head.

“Too much to explain,” He whispered.

After that, they all took the trays of tapas and placed them in convenient spots around the first floor of the house for the guests. Soon the doorbell started to ring more frequently, signaling the arrival of more people.

Time for the party to begin.

  
  


**

  
  


A pleasantly sized crowd were dancing and jumping animatedly in the living room, while pop music poured in through the speakers lining the walls. There was a speaker situated in every corner, creating a surround sound effect that left the music vibrating comfortably under Yuta’s skin. Strobe lights set up all around the floor lit up the dimmed room in an array of neon colors, adding to the intoxicating atmosphere.

Yuta took another sip from his drink, scrunching his nose at the after taste. Jungwoo was mixing the drinks tonight, which meant that anyone having one of his drinks would quickly bypass the giggly tipsy stage and go straight into the blackout taco trucks at 3 am drunk stage.

Yuta almost felt bad for Jaehyun, who decided not to drink that much so he could watch over Jungwoo behind the kitchen island to make sure his boyfriend didn’t accidentally poison any of the partygoers. 

Jungwoo could sometimes get a little too eager with his pours, and Yuta knew Taeil did not want to deal with anyone going to the hospital for alcohol poisoning on his watch.

When he looked over to the couple, however, Yuta almost took back his statement, because a tipsy Jungwoo was a sensual Jungwoo. Yuta could see Jaehyun trying to restrain his boyfriend’s hands from where he was standing. Jungwoo was practically latched to Jaehyun’s side, hands roaming as he whispered god knows what into Jaehyun’s ear when there wasn’t anyone asking for a drink.

Deciding not to subject himself to the couple anymore and instead mingle a little, Yuta grabbed a cheese skewer off a nearby tray of tapas and chewed on it thoughtfully, drink almost empty in his hand. He wouldn’t need another drink for a while anyway.

He hated to admit it, but _damn_ these tapas were good. Five random girls already approached him gushing about them, wanting to know who made them. It made his blood boil. Of course, Doyoung would play dirty by using the party to his advantage, where there would be many people to praise his cooking.

Yuta would just have to find a better way to gain an edge up on the younger. He chugged the rest of the drink, discarding the cup on a random table and moving to the living room.

His head was already feeling fuzzy, and the sudden blaring of shitty pop music in his ears did nothing to steady his feet or his thoughts. Who thought it was a good idea to let Yangyang DJ? Yuta loved the kid, but his taste was way too Pop for Yuta’s liking.

Said DJ was currently laughing behind his turntables, chatting it up with another Chinese boy Yuta barely recognized through his tipsy haze as Xiao Dejun. The two of them were part of Omega Chi down the street, a fraternity that exclusively consisted of students who could speak Chinese. 

Their fraternity was close with Delta Nu and Sigma Pi, but the members really only ever saw each other at major parties or greek row functions since their houses were on opposite ends of the street.

Yangyang’s eyes caught Yuta’s and he sent him an eager wave, pointing to the tapa he was holding in his hand and shooting Yuta a thumbs up. Yuta returned the boy’s wave with a tightlipped smile. Even if Johnny wasn’t DJing tonight like he usually did, Yuta had to admit everyone was bouncing and grinding on each other excitedly, grooving with the music Yangyang played. At least letting the kid DJ gave Johnny a chance to let loose and have some fun of his own.

Yuta successfully maneuvered his way through the sea of sweaty bodies, only being held back once by a hand on his wrist, which belonged to Jaemin trying to get him to dance together. Yuta politely declined the younger, who pouted but let go of Yuta’s wrist in favor of grabbing Renjun’s waist.

In his peripheral, he saw Doyoung leaning against the frame of the living room entrance, eyes lazily scanning the crowd, a drink in his hand.

Yuta smirked and sauntered up to him. “Have I mentioned how good the tapas are?” Yuta called over the music, earning Doyoung’s attention as he turned his head in Yuta’s direction. 

Doyoung probably didn’t catch the sarcastic lilt in Yuta’s voice, or if he did, he didn’t show it. He instead smiled smugly. “You didn’t have to. I know they were delicious,” he replied easily, taking a sip of his drink. Yuta could see the light blush of his cheeks from the alcohol coursing its way through his veins. “I’ve had a couple of people coming to me asking me to cook for them. How they knew I was the one who made them, I’ll never know.” He sent Yuta a knowing look.

“That was probably Mark. The boy can’t lie for his own good and you know how much he loves your cooking,” Yuta let out with a tiny laugh. 

Doyoung nodded, mouth upturned slightly as he took another sip from his drink. “He’s not the only one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Yuta asked indignantly, though both he and Doyoung knew exactly what he meant.

“Just admit I won this round,” Doyoung said, crossing his arms over his chest, leaning forward a little bit to peer at Yuta’s face, spark in his eyes. 

For a moment, they just stared at each other fiercely, neither wanting to back down. Finally, Yuta spoke up. “Fine, but I’ll still find a way to get back at you. This is far from over,” he said, arm coming to rest naturally against the wall behind Doyoung’s shoulder. Yangyang started playing some deep house music, and the reverberating bass was making it hard for Yuta and Doyoung to hear each other.

Doyoung’s eyes became hooded as he took another sip from his drink, gaze flickering between the dance floor and Yuta. “You can try, but I doubt you can easily succeed.”

“Is that a challenge?” Yuta fired back, easily riled up by Doyoung’s words.

He only received another upturn of lips and a shrug of shoulders in response. As Yuta looked into Doyoung’s eyes, a fire flickered in the depths of the younger’s irises. Yuta was entranced, unable to release himself from the hold Doyoung unknowingly had on him.

He pushed his hand off the wall, about to grab Doyoung’s wrist so they could go dance and have some fun when Taeyong quickly approached the both of them.

“There you two are,” Taeyong beamed, a bright smile underneath his pink cheeks. “We’re about to play beer pong with the others. I’ve already called you as my teammate, Doyoungie.” He beckoned them to follow him back where he came.

Doyoung sighed and rolled his eyes. “It’s only so I can drink the beer for him,” Doyoung mumbled to Yuta as they followed Taeyong through the hallway to the playroom in the back of the house.

Yuta chuckled, watching as Taeyong slightly wobbled on his legs as they walked a step behind him. “How many drinks do you think he’s had?”

“He’s probably not even finished one. He’s horrible with alcohol,” Doyoung replied, quickly downing the rest of his mixed drink and placing it down on top of one of the stairs they passed.

“Hey, I have to clean that later!” Yuta complained, shooting Doyoung an ungrateful glare.

Doyoung only snickered. “I know,” he replied.

In the playroom, their other friends were already setting up cups on opposite sides of a table, pouring beer into each one.

When Jaehyun caught sight of the trio he beamed and walked over. “Yuta, wanna team up?” He asked.

“Tired of your boyfriend?” Yuta teased with a laugh, placing his cup down on the windowsill next to him after draining the last of its contents.

Jaehyun playfully shoved Yuta’s shoulder as they all gathered around the table. “Haha, very funny. But no, Jungwoo wanted to pair with Taeil so he had better chances of winning.”

Yuta winced dramatically, smoothing a hand over Jaehyun’s arm. “Damn, that sucks dude. Guess we’ll just have to show them who’s boss.”

Jaehyun sent him a smirk and they bumped their fists, ready to bring the heat. Jungwoo and Taeil wouldn’t know what hit them.

  
  


**

  
  


About halfway through their first round, Mark and Donghyuck stumbled into the room to join them. The pair found themselves sitting together on one side of the table, Donghyuck with a microphone in his hands. They both took to giving very excited commentary about all the happenings of the game as the boys played.

Currently, Yuta and Jaehyun were playing against Johnny, who decided to go solo.

"How will Johnny, self-proclaimed beer pong expert, match up against Delta Nu's pride and joys, Yuta and Jaehyun?" Donghyuck called into the microphone, his voice echoing and amplifying around them, the music from the speakers distant. The playroom had soundproof walls, so the frat boys could comfortably talk with each other as they played without worrying about the music being too loud. 

Johnny had his left hand in his pocket as he aimed with his right, an aura of nonchalance radiating off of him. He threw the ball into the air, and it bounced off the rim of one of the cups in front of Yuta before flying off the table.

Everyone cheered, Donghyuck and Mark standing up with glee.

"He hit the rim!" Mark yelled, hand cupped around his mouth to amplify his voice, seeing as Donghyuck was the only one with a microphone.

Johnny laughed it off, but Yuta noticed the competitive glint in his eyes as Jaehyun went to retrieve the ball.

There were only two cups left on Johnny's side, while Yuta and Jaehyun still had the majority of their cups standing.

Yuta gripped the ping pong ball in his hands, closing one eye to get his aim as accurate as possible, before throwing the ball.

It hit the back rim of one of the red cups, and it seemed like it would bounce away, but then it suddenly rolled between the two rims of the cups and landed in the other cup.

Everyone stood up and shouted, amazed at the trick shot. Yuta pumped his fist with a smirk, sticking his tongue out playfully. Doyoung, who was seated closest to Yuta, brought his hand up for a high five, which Yuta returned excitedly.

If Doyoung's cheeks flamed up at the simplest form of contact between him and Yuta, Yuta accounted it to the alcohol coursing through all their veins and nothing more.

Jaehyun let Yuta have the ball to try for the winning shot. Yuta leaned his shoulders back and closed one eye again, concentrating fiercely on the lone cup on the other side of the table.

He probably didn't notice, Doyoung thought, that he was sticking his tongue against his cheek, making it protrude out in a little bump as he focused. Doyoung hated to admit it, but it was kind of hot, especially with the way Yuta's eyebrows were scrunched up and his lips pursed together.

_It's the alcohol_ , Doyoung told himself.

Yuta didn't make the next shot, but Johnny wasn't able to take down enough cups before Jaehyun landed the ball into Johnny's last cup, giving them the win.

Mark and Donghyuck cheered, spitting out random words of congratulations.

Johnny took the loss with stride, comfortably sitting in the empty chair next to Doyoung. Yuta and Jaehyun switched places with Doyoung and Taeyong as the two walked up to play Jungwoo and Taeil.

"Go, Babe!" Jaehyun hollered, laughing heartily as Jungwoo posed and sent him a wink along with a flying kiss. Jaehyun was considerably more buzzed now, Yuta noticed, since he drank most of the alcohol in the cups they lost.

"Hey, that's not fair," Doyoung pouted from the other side of the table, rolling up the sleeves of his skin-tight sweater. "We deserve cheers too."

Yuta giggled at the scrunch of Doyoung's nose and decided to call out, "Go Babe!" to Doyoung, earning himself a glare and a blush from the younger.

Everyone laughed at Doyoung's sudden blush, and the game started as Donghyuck's voice rang through the room from the microphone.

As the drum of an old school hip hop beat bumped through the speakers, Taeil put on sunglasses — _where did he even get those?_ — and started bobbing his torso up and down to the beat, moving his hands around as the song progressed.

Taeyong, who was easily the lightest weight of them all, could barely keep himself balanced on his feet, yet he started waving his arms around and moving his feet to the music as well, throwing the first ball without much care. It easily missed any of the cups, but Taeyong didn't seem to care that much.

Doyoung on the other hand, ever the competitive soul, whined to Taeyong. "Hyung can't you take this a little more seriously? I don't want to lose." 

Taeyong only giggled in response, ruffling Doyoung's hair and taking another bite from the sandwich in his hands. He grabbed an entire plate of the salmon and cream cheese baguettes before they went into the playroom, having already had three since they started playing.

Halfway through the game, Taeyong couldn't even throw the ball in a straight line anymore, and Doyoung took it upon himself to drink all the alcohol from the cups they lost, which did nothing to help his already frayed mind.

Taeil was absolutely destroying them every turn he got, the smirk on his face as he grooved to the music never slipping off. He knew he was good, and nobody doubted it either. It was why Jungwoo wanted him on his team in the first place.

Three drinks down later, Doyoung and Taeyong lost and were met with the cheers and hollering of Mark and Donghyuck with their commentary. Doyoung slumped back into his previous seat next to Johnny, leaning his head on the other's shoulder with a light whine about losing.

Johnny cooed at him cutely and pet his hair once or twice, letting him rest his head for a few seconds as the final game commenced.

The fire was turned up to the max, Jaehyun and Jungwoo sending each other heated gazes as they all took turns aiming and throwing the ping pong ball into the red cups.

Taeil and Yuta didn't back down either, everyone vibrating in their seats as the game progressed very tightly, each team either narrowly missing a cup or just barely making it in.

The hip hop music from the speakers reached a peak as Yuta threw a shot and it missed the last cup by a hair.

The frat boys all groaned, feeling the frustration of not making the shot.

"This is it!" Donghyuck said into the mic, standing up and looking between the two teams. He pointed to Taeil, "If Taeil makes this shot, it's all over and he and Jungwoo are the winners. If he doesn't, Jaehyun has another shot to secure the win. What will it be?"

The boys watched with bated breath as Taeil moved his hand back and forth, concentrating on the last cup he needed to hit.

With a shimmy of his shoulders as the hook melody line of the song played, he threw the ball.

And in a second, it landed directly into the beer of the last red cup, signaling his team's win.

A roar of cheers erupted from all the frat boys, everyone letting out unintelligible screams, going to hug Taeil as he stood confidently, his elbow above his head in the same position as when he threw the ball. His face was smug as he laughed at the defeated looks on Jaehyun and Yuta’s faces.

Jungwoo albeit threw himself on Taeil, cheering triumphantly and sticking his tongue out at Jaehyun, who could only laugh at the cuteness of his boyfriend.

"Shit, guess I lost the bet," Jaehyun sighed, but there was a wistful smile on his face, and something told Yuta he wasn't dejected about losing in the slightest.

"What bet?" Yuta asked, though he had a small inkling of what the bet might have entailed.

"We bet who would get the right side of the bed for the week," Jaehyun said, shaking his head fondly. "He's really picky about which side of the bed he sleeps on during each season. I'm always happy to oblige him, but it's cuter to see him get riled up over it through a competition."

Yuta wanted to gag at the clear adoration in Jaehyun's voice, the couple's antics being as stupid and cheesy as he feared.

“Ha! This makes us 2 and 1,” Jungwoo cheered, pointing a finger in Doyoung’s direction.

“Excuse me?” Doyoung called back, dramatically smacking Jungwoo’s finger out of his face. “This makes us _even_.”

Jaehyun scoffed loudly, squinting at Doyoung. “And when did we suddenly get _even_?”

Johnny, sitting next to Doyoung, leaned his body over with a blank expression on his face. “Uhm hello? The tapas? Need I say more?”

Yuta opened his mouth to argue, but he couldn’t, remembering his conversation with Doyoung earlier. He also couldn’t deny that Johnny was right; the tapas were madly delicious and an absolute hit with the partygoers.

“That settles it!” Donghyuck yelled into the microphone. “As of tonight, Delta Nu and Sigma Pi are now on even terms. Who will make the next move? Stay tuned to find out folks!” 

  
  


**

Yuta's head was pounding as he blinked his eyes against the harsh light hitting his eyelids. His throat was full of cotton and his muscles felt heavy, as though he had just run a marathon without drinking any water. The alcohol was now completely out of his system but left a roaring hangover in its wake.

He shook his head lightly with a groan, trying to once again blink his eyes open. He spent a few moments taking in his surroundings once his eyes adjusted to the sunlight flowing in from the windows.

He soon realized his muscles weren't only heavy from his hangover, but because two bodies had their entire weight resting on either side of him.

Glancing down to his right, he saw Taeyong fast asleep against his hip, arm loosely draped over his lap. Yuta brought his right arm up to rest it on Taeyong's head, lightly patting his hair. The other hummed and snuggled deeper into Yuta's side, which made Yuta giggle.

When he looked to his left side, he saw Doyoung's head resting on his shoulder, cheek squished and lips jutted out. His hair was sticking up at odd angles and every now and then he would mumble incoherent things to himself.

Yuta's shoulder was aching from the angle he was in, but when he tried to move it, Doyoung's face scrunched up and he only leaned in closer. Yuta's heart jumped out of his chest at the sight. He would have spent the entire morning just admiring Doyoung's pretty face as the younger slept, but his arm was fast asleep and he was starting to feel pins and needles up and down the skin.

Tentatively, he tilted his head down so his mouth was closer to Doyoung's ear.

"Hey, Doyoung?" He called quietly. The younger stirred but still didn't move. After another moment, Yuta tried again. "Dons, wake up."

Doyoung let out tiny high pitched whines, bringing a hand up to pinch his eyes. "Mmm, what?" He mumbled, blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

"I'm losing feeling in my arm Doyoung, please," Yuta said.

Doyoung seemed to just realize where he was and turned his head to make eye contact with Yuta. It seemed the sudden proximity of their faces startled him, for his eyes blew wide and he suddenly jerked back, sitting up straight and rigid.

"Shit, I'm sorry for falling asleep on you like that," He slurred, voice rough with sleep.

Yuta let out a soft chuckle, moving his arm a little to try and regain feeling. "Awe, where's the arrogant guy from last night?" He teased.

Doyoung shot him a tired glare, raking his hands through his hair. "Shut up," he mumbled. "Ugh, how did we even end up like this in the first place?"

Yuta hummed for a moment, trying to piece all the hazy memories from last night to form some kind of coherent answer. His fingers absentmindedly played with the strands of Taeyong's hair.

"From what I remember," he stated, "We all moved to the couches after beer pong because we wanted to play truth or dare, and at some point, Mark and Donghyuck switched shirts, Johnny lost his pants, and Jungwoo and Jaehyun..." he trailed off, looking over to the adjacent couch, where Jungwoo and Jaehyun were a pile of limbs on top of each other, sleeping soundly.

“Is that it?” Doyoung asked.

Yuta racked his brain, trying to remember any more important details before his memory went completely dark. 

“Well I remember something about us pointing to each other, and then I remember our faces getting closer together…” 

Doyoung turned rigid next to him. “Our faces?”

Yuta glanced at him, not knowing how to interrupt the younger’s body language. He didn’t want to think about the sad pang of his heart or the curling feeling of regret enclosing his throat. “I don’t really remember,” he said quietly.

"It was probably nothing then," Doyoung said, leaning back against the couch with a sigh, hand coming up to rub at his temple. His cheeks were dusted pink, but Yuta credited it to his hangover. "My head is killing me."

Yuta's own headache had turned to a dull pulsing, but it still made the back of his eyes sting. "Come on, let's go to the kitchen and get some water," He said, already moving to gently coax Taeyong off his side and safely onto the couch cushions. Once he saw the other was still asleep, he stood up and looked to Doyoung.

"Sounds good to me," Doyoung replied, getting up to stretch his arms above his head. His muscles ached from the odd sleeping position, and he let out a small groan as his joints cracked.

They headed to the kitchen together, lazily walking through the aftermath of the party on their way there. There were red cups thrown all over the stairway and floor, and as the two of them stepped into the living room, Yuta saw all their younger frat boys asleep in a dogpile on the floor. It was kind of cute really, seeing Renjun snuggled between Jaemin and Jeno, with Chenle and Jisung laying on top of the three of them.

Thankfully the kitchen was mostly clean, and Yuta could easily step over to the refrigerator, opening it to retrieve two water bottles. He handed one to Doyoung, who took it with a grateful nod.

"Do you want anything to eat? We were supposed to go grocery shopping later, so there's not much in the fridge, but I could whip up something for us," Yuta said, regarding Doyoung on the other side of the kitchen island.

Even in his still tired state, Doyoung rolled his eyes with a smile. He walked over and placed a hand on Yuta's shoulder, pushing the other into a bar stool. "Let me take care of it."

"No Doyoung, you don't have to," Yuta immediately protested, but the younger sent him a look with raised eyebrows, and Yuta sullenly sat back into his seat. It was a silent rule among them all not to come in between Doyoung and the kitchen.

"Just let me do this for you," Doyoung said softly before turning to look inside the refrigerator.

Yuta left the other to his devices, smiling to himself when Doyoung started humming a tune to himself as he moved through the kitchen with grace as if it was his own. He could see the younger quickly wake up and gain energy as he started to cook.

His phone was still, thankfully, in his jean pocket, but the battery was almost dead when he pulled it out to check the time.

"Doyoung, I'm going to run upstairs real quick, okay?" Yuta called.

Doyoung sent him a hum of affirmation in return, and Yuta quickly ran up the stairs to plug his phone into the charger. It took him a little while however because he couldn't seem to remember where he left his charger and Mark unfortunately owned an android, while Taeil never kept his charger in their room.

When he reemerged in the kitchen after finally finding his charger, there were two more people in the kitchen, one seated at the island while the other searched through the cupboards.

"Where do you keep your coffee?" Johnny groaned, hair tousled and pants thankfully back on.

"Cupboard to your left," Yuta replied easily, walking over to take a seat next to Taeyong, who sent him a tired wave and a small smile.

There were already plates and utensils set in front of them on the island, and four small bowls of rice. Doyoung turned around from his spot at the stove with a pot of soup in his hands, which he set down on the countertop.

"Doyoungie makes the best hangover soup," Taeyong said lightly to Yuta, picking up the empty bowl in front of him and handing it to Doyoung with a small thanks.

Yuta practically drooled looking at the pot of steaming soup in front of him. He didn't even know they had that many vegetables left in the refrigerator, let alone any beef.

"You're such a lightweight but still insist on drinking half your body weight, so I've had plenty of practice," Doyoung said, ladling soup into Taeyong's bowl and handing it back to him before extending an arm out for Yuta's bowl.

Taeyong stuck his tongue out at Doyoung but grabbed his spoon eagerly to taste the soup.

Johnny plopped into the seat next to Doyoung, a piping hot mug of instant coffee in his hand. Yuta couldn't help but laugh as the dead look in Johnny's eyes slowly faded as he drank his coffee with a content sigh.

Together, the four of them quietly ate their breakfast, the atmosphere light as they slowly started regaining their energy.

Yuta saw Johnny and Taeyong eyeing him and Doyoung the entirety of the meal, but he didn't want to question it, nervous about what he would find out.

It seemed he was right to be nervous, because, towards the end of breakfast, Johnny placed his now second mug of coffee down and looked at Yuta with a small smirk. "So," he started, crossing his arms over his chest, "what's up with you two?"

Doyoung and Yuta looked at the taller boy in confusion. "What do you mean?" Doyoung asked, placing his spoon down on the countertop.

"I don't think they remember Johnny," Taeyong said with a little giggle.

There was definitely something going on, and Yuta had no idea what the two of them were talking about.

"Remember what?" Yuta asked, chewing around a spoonful of rice.

Johnny took another sip from his mug, not saying anything for a few moments. "Something that you did last night," He supplied, but that did nothing to insight either Doyoung or Yuta about what _actually_ happened.

"What did we do?" Doyoung continued.

"Well it was more of what did you _say_ ," Johnny replied, wiggling his eyebrows a little when Yuta sent him a blank stare

Doyoung gave up on trying to get a straight answer out of Johnny and instead turned his head to look straight at Taeyong.

Taeyong glanced between Doyoung and Yuta before addressing Doyoung. "You kind of said you wouldn't be opposed to kissing Yuta."

"What?!" Doyoung yelled, looking at Johnny.

"More like he said he would fuck Yuta," Johnny said to himself, but it was loud enough that both Doyoung and Yuta heard it.

Yuta froze, eyes blown wide, watching as Doyoung's face contorted into one of horror and embarrassment. He could feel his own cheeks flaming up with shame.

Yuta tried not to notice that Doyoung absolutely refused to look at him.

"Yong," He said softly to the boy next to him, when Doyoung had started fighting with Johnny who was only laughing loudly, "can you tell me what actually happened?"

"Well it was towards the end of the night," Taeyong replied, voice light but Yuta knew the other frat boy long enough to know he was amused. "We all dared each other to point to the person we wanted to have sex with. You can imagine how that went."

Yuta could feel his throat dry up. "Oh god," he breathed, "what then?"

Taeyong giggled. "Well after we all pointed, you whined about how nobody chose you, and then Doyoung piped up saying he wouldn't be opposed to it. You two even leaned together to kiss, before Doyoung practically passed out on your shoulder before you could get any closer."

Yuta quickly glanced to his side, where Doyoung was still angrily smacking Johnny's arm, but even from his spot he could see the faint blush adorning the younger's cheeks.

"We were just drunk," he mumbled, "it doesn't mean anything, right? Nothing is up with us, we’re still normal."

"Yuta," Taeyong whispered, and when Yuta looked back into Taeyong's eyes he saw the other's expression turn serious. "If I have to see you two dance around each other with these little competitions you do every few months without either of you confessing your feelings, I think I'm going to go bald."

"If all the hair dye doesn't do it for you first," Yuta joked, earning him an eye roll and a chuckle. Taeyong didn’t say anything about how Yuta pointedly ignored his entire point.

At that moment the rest of their friends poured into the kitchen one by one, each of them more hungover than the previous boy.

"My head is killing me!" Donghyuck groaned, voice way too loud for someone who was supposedly hungover.

"Donghyuck, shut up," Jungwoo deadpanned, practically all of his weight being supported by Jaehyun as the two followed into the kitchen after him.

Donghyuck looked behind his shoulder to stick his tongue out at Jungwoo, but he still lowered his voice after that in consideration of the older.

"What's this?" Taeil asked when they all walked over to the table, looking at the small pot that didn't have enough soup to serve all of them.

"Just some soup Doyoung put together," Taeyong replied.

"Awe," Jungwoo whined, "I want some."

"Here," Doyoung said, eager to leave the table and forget about the previous conversation. He stood up and retrieved another bowl from the cupboard before coming back and ladling Jungwoo some.

Yuta noticed the tension in Doyoung's shoulders and the way he refused to look up at practically anyone, worst of all Yuta.

He didn't know what to do. Neither of them remembered what they said last night, it didn't have to be a big deal and they could move on, right?

Yuta's stomach churned at the thought of forgetting all of it and continuing as if everything was like it was before, but he buried down the feeling. Clearly, with the way Doyoung was spaced out the rest of breakfast, the other wanted to rid his memory of it all and definitely didn't see Yuta that way.

He shook his head, not wanting to bury himself in a grave without a tombstone. If Doyoung wanted to forget it, he would too.

_He was just drunk_ , Yuta thought, _we both were._

  
  


**

  
  


A little while later, the boys of Sigma Pi left to head back to their own house. The boys of Delta Nu stayed seated at the kitchen island, not wanting to start cleaning up the party just yet.

"So," Jaehyun started, sipping on his own mug of coffee, looking at Yuta, who was still finishing his soup and rice, "have you got an idea for what we're going to do next?"

Yuta looked up at Jaehyun. "Do next?"

Jungwoo, next to Jaehyun, rolled his eyes and scoffed. " _Hello_? For our competition, war, whatever you want to call it. We're even now, thanks to Taeil and I, and it's our move."

Yuta looked down at his almost empty bowl of rice, trying to think of something they could do. His brain wasn't really cooperating with him at that moment, for all he could think about was the blurry memory of Doyoung's face getting closer to his before it all went fuzzy and dark.

"Oh!" Mark piped up, chewing on a piece of bread, "Donghyuck told me Doyoung already started prepping for some kind of bake sale they join every year?"

"Yeah, the _Make a Change_ bake sale," Taeil said, leaning against the island, "It's a huge charity event hosted on campus every year. Most of the sororities join, as well as Doyoung and Taeyong under Sigma Pi’s name. Each house sets up its own table with baked goods, with all the proceeds going to charity. They also have a competition where whoever sells the most gets a basket full of gift cards to different restaurants and stores. Doyoung and Taeyong have won it for the past 2 years."

"Woah, why didn't I know about that?" Yuta asked, eyebrows furrowed.

"Maybe because you never read the school paper," Jungwoo drawled, "They talk about all the happenings on campus in it. We literally get it delivered to our house every month."

Yuta shrugged his shoulders, taking another sip of his now-cold soup. "I get all the news I need from you guys. Why bother with the newspaper?"

Jungwoo scoffed and rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything else.

“So should we join the competition?” Mark asked, looking at Yuta expectantly.

"Do we really want to try and beat them in this though?" Jaehyun asked around his mug. "I mean, Doyoung is literally a culinary major, and you know how Taeyong is when it comes to baking."

If Doyoung was their resident “chef”, or however they liked to call it, then Taeyong was their resident baker. The frat boy loved to bake, and would always try out new and crazy combinations that somehow always turned out better than one would expect. None of them really complained about it though, not when they get an influx of delicious treats during the holiday season.

Yuta chuckled, throwing his hand up. "We already did so well with the first meal, this will be a piece of cake. Besides, how hard can baking be?"

"Harder than you think,” Taeil said with a light laugh. “Baking and cooking are not the same thing," 

"Says who?" Yuta replied defiantly, standing up from his seat with a wide smile. "I've decided. We're going to enter the bake sale and earn more profit than Sigma Pi, giving us the advantage over them. Are you all in?"

The boys all looked around at each other before looking back at Yuta.

"Not like we really have a choice," Jungwoo grumbled, but they were all wearing matching grins, and Yuta was excited for what was to come.

  
  


**

“Guess what!”

Doyoung picked his head up from where he was reading a recipe book, watching as Donghyuck burst in through the front door.

“What is it?” Taeyong asked with a smile from next to Doyoung.

Donghyuck plopped into one of the stools at the kitchen island, resting his chin on his hands as he looked at Doyoung and Taeyong. He gingerly plucked a cookie from the plate sitting on the marble and took a bit.

“Aren’t you going to ask me about my day first?” Donghyuck asked, chewing around the cookie.

Doyoung sent the younger an unamusing stare. “Donghyuck, we’re busy trying out recipes for this weekend. If you won’t tell us, then let us get back to work.”

He looked back down at his recipe book, but Donghyuck reached a hand over to cover the page. “Trust me, you’re going to want to hear this. It involves the bake sale, _plus_ a certain someone who lives next door,” Donghyuck said, mirth in his voice.

Doyoung’s head picked up once more, curiosity peaked. “Yuta?” He asked, confused. His heart picked up pace just at the thought of the other, and he desperately willed it to slow down.

Donghyuck nodded, smile growing wider, taking another bite of his cookie. “I was stopping by the events office to pick up our information pamphlet when I saw none other than Kim Jungwoo talking to Sooyoung.”

“Jungwoo?” Taeyong mused, “but Jungwoo is involved with a lot of the events on campus.”

“My initial thoughts as well,” Donghyuck said, nodding, “but when I got closer, I overheard them talking about the bake sale. Turns out, Delta Nu signed up for a table.”

Doyoung blinked at Donghyuck. “Are you sure?” He asked.

“One hundred percent,” Donghyuck answered, leaning back in his seat. “I asked Sooyoung after Jungwoo left and she confirmed it.”

Doyoung stayed silent for a few moments, not knowing what to say. 

“In my opinion,” Donghyuck continued, completely oblivious to Doyoung’s shock, “this will make it all the more fun. It’s kind of boring when we’re all alone.”

Taeyong hummed, sending Donghyuck off out of the kitchen. The younger grumbled but knew to leave Doyoung and Taeyong alone so they could work. He got up and headed off to his room, but not before snatching two more cookies for himself.

Taeyong laughed as he watched the younger go before turning to Doyoung, who still had said nothing. “Looks like our certain someone made his next move, Doyoung,” he said, sending Doyoung a knowing smile.

Doyoung’s hand tightened into a fist and his heart thrummed in excitement. He turned his attention back to the recipe book, but his mind was unfocused.

“Looks like he did.”

  
  


**

  
  


Yuta glared at Jungwoo, standing his ground.

“We’re making brownies.”

Jungwoo glared back, one hand on his hip.

“And I _told_ you, Doyoung makes something brownie related every year. We don’t stand a chance trying to beat him at his own game. We should make cookies.”

Yuta scoffed, pointing a finger at Jungwoo. “Making brownies is exactly what we should be doing! He won’t expect us to make something so similar to him, which makes it the perfect plan! Cookies are too basic!”

They were currently standing on opposite sides of their kitchen island, staring each other down with heated gazes, as though lightning was cracking in the space between them. They had been standing there for nearly half an hour, or five minutes. Yuta couldn’t tell the difference.

Jaehyun was standing next to Jungwoo, though Yuta suspected it was mostly because if he stood anywhere else Jungwoo would refuse to kiss him for a week straight, while Taeil stood next to Yuta. 

Mark, sweet Mark, was standing between the four of them, looking back and forth desperately, not knowing which side to choose. 

“I’m sure we can come to a compromise guys,” Mark said. He curled in on himself when both Yuta and Jungwoo swiftly directed their glares at him, putting his hands up weakly.

They both promptly ignored what Mark said and turned back to face each other.

“Brownies are way too risky,” Jungwoo said. “We have to play it safe.”

Yuta scoffed. “Come on, Jungwoo! Who ever wins by playing it safe?”

Jungwoo gasped, ready to fire back at Yuta.

“Okay I’m going to stop you both before we’re here until nightfall,” Taeil piped up, walking over to stand next to Mark. “I think either option is a good one, so let’s just make a decision and move on.”

Yuta pouted, while Jungwoo rolled his eyes and huffed. “Well what do you suggest, Taeil?”

Jaehyun, who had been silent until then, spoke up. “Why not just make brookies?”

“Broo what?” Yuta asked, raising his eyebrows at Jaehyun.

“Brookies,” Jaehyun repeated, and when he was met with blank stares from everyone, he sighed and shook his head. “They’re cookie brownies.”

They all let out little “ohs” of understanding, until “yeah I still don’t know what that means,” Yuta said.

“Oh my god it means you combine cookie and brownie batter, dumbass,” Jungwoo explained with a roll of his eyes. Yuta sent the younger an obscene hand gesture and stuck out his tongue.

“That’s a good idea, Jaehyun,” Taeil said before Yuta and Jungwoo could start fighting again. He looked between the two of them. “So, are we good with making cookie brownies?”

Yuta and Jungwoo glanced at each other before looking away, raising their chins and crossing their arms.

“Fine,” Yuta said.

“Whatever,” Jungwoo said.

Jaehyun and Mark visibly sighed with relief. 

“Now that that’s settled, let’s look at recipes,” Taeil said.

  
  


**

  
  


Yuta leered down at the oven, as though it had personally offended him.

“Yuta, glaring at the oven is not going to make it turn on.”

“You don’t know that,” Yuta replied, squinting his eyes even more at the oven.

A sigh, and then a hand was on his shoulder, turning him around. Taeil sent him an unamused look before pointing towards the counter, where an array of ingredients were scattered.

“Why don’t you mix the dry ingredients together and I’ll preheat the oven,” He said, before taking over Yuta’s spot in front of the oven.

Yuta stared at the several containers facing him and the empty bowl in the middle of it all, its porcelain depths taunting him. He picked up the piece of paper that had the cookie recipe written on it and read out all the dry ingredients needed to himself.

Slowly, he started to add all the dry ingredients to the bowl as needed.

Once he finished adding the flour, the recipe read to add baking powder. He turned to his left and picked up a small container that read _baking soda_ . Next to it was an almost identical container that read _baking powder_.

Yuta stared at the two containers with confusion. He looked up and saw Jungwoo walking into the kitchen with Jaehyun towing in behind him.

“Hey Jungwoo, what’s the difference between baking soda and powder?” He called out.

“Hell if I know,” Jungwoo replied, before walking straight past the kitchen and plopping down on the couch, taking out his phone.

Yuta pouted at the younger before turning to Jaehyun with hopeful eyes. Jaehyun, however, just sent him a shrug.

“Does it even matter which one I use?” Yuta asked, mostly to himself, examining the two containers closely.

“Probably not,” Jaehyun replied, moving to grab an apron from the closet.

Yuta sighed, putting down the baking soda and measuring out the right amount of baking powder. “Baking is so confusing,” he mumbled.

  
  
  
  


Yuta probably should have seen this coming. 

He was put in charge of watching the cookies as they sat in the oven, while the others went to class. The recipe didn’t tell him how long to bake the cookies or what temperature to set the oven, and he didn’t really know what temperature the cookies preferred to be baked at, so he decided to just wing it.

Nobody else was home except for him and Jisung, but Jisung was too busy studying and Yuta didn’t want to bother him, so he was just hoping for the best. It couldn’t turn out that bad, right?

He settled down on the couch and turned on the TV to continue his annual rerun of Naruto. 

It technically wasn’t his fault he couldn’t hear the oven timer go off over the sounds of a fight scene.

Halfway through his third episode, he inhaled and immediately scrunched his nose. It smelled like something was burning. Suddenly, the fire alarm started blaring loudly throughout the house.

He turned around to look over the back of the couch and his eyes widened in horror as he saw a cloud of black smoke emerge from the entrance to the kitchen, getting larger with every passing second. He wondered what the hell could have caused when the image of uncooked cookies lining a baking sheet hit him.

“Shit!” He yelled, immediately jumping up and racing into the kitchen. He coughed violently, waving a hand in front of his face as his eyes burned trying to see through all the smoke. He hunched over and got close to the ground, inching closer to the oven.

“Yuta?” He heard from behind him over the sounds of the alarm.

“Jisung?” He called out, coughing when smoke entered his lungs. “Stay away!” He said in between coughs.

“Oh my god oh my god oh my god,” he heard Jisung yell, voice fading out as the younger ran off somewhere else in the house.

Yuta turned his attention back to the task at hand. He reached his hands out and made contact with the handle of the oven door. He quickly pulled it open and another wave of smoke puffed out right into his face.

He coughed violently, hunching over and heaving. He reached out to grab the tray and immediately recoiled when his fingers touched the burning hot metal. He clutched his burnt hand close to his chest and looked around for an oven mitt. Luckily, there was one hanging off the knob to one of the lower cupboards near the oven.

Yuta quickly reached over and removed it from the knob, putting it on his non-burnt hand. He took hold of the tray and retrieved it from the oven, waving away the black smoke that was blowing right into his face from the cookies.

He set the tray down on the stove and bent down to close the oven door and turn off the oven.

“Jisung!” He yelled once more, worried about where the younger frat boy ran off to. 

He quickly walked over to open the window above the sink to let the smoke out. The alarm was still sounding loudly, and Yuta felt a headache coming on rapidly as his chest ached from all the smoke he inhaled.

Jisung padded into the kitchen, worry painted on his face. “Yuta what happened?” He asked.

Yuta sighed and looked at the tray sitting on the stovetop. He could barely call what was resting on the metal tray cookies anymore. They were burnt completely black, charred pieces falling off of each cookie.

“Cookies?” He said, shrugging his shoulders.

Jisung nodded, dazed. “Right,” he said softly. He pointed behind him towards the front door.“There are firefighters here.”

At that, Yuta perked up, eyebrows furrowed. “What? Did you call them?”

Jisung quickly shook his head _no_. 

Before Yuta could respond, the front door was opening, and instead of firefighters like Yuta expected, _Doyoung_ ran inside.

“Doyoung?” Yuta asked, words dying on his tongue when Doyoung walked all the way up to him and peered into his face. His mouth fell open dumbly as Doyoung stared at him, scanning his face with only inches of distance between them.

“Your eyes are red,” Doyoung mumbled. “Just what the hell happened?”

Yuta didn’t respond, didn’t know _how_ to, with Doyoung so close to him. His eyes flickered down to Doyoung’s lips and he thought back to the conversation from a few days ago, about what Doyoung said while they were both drunk off their asses. How he wouldn’t mind kissing Yuta, how he wouldn’t mind... 

Yuta’s thoughts were interrupted when two men clad in firefighting gear stepped inside the kitchen.

“What seems to be the problem?” The taller of the two asked.

Nobody said anything for a moment until finally, Jisung spoke up. “We were trying to bake cookies,” He said, scratching the back of his neck. 

The second firefighter nodded, though he seemed to not care about the situation. “This is why you buy fire extinguishers,” He said, voice bored.

Yuta couldn’t help but blush, embarrassed that the fire department had to be called over his small mistake. “Sorry,” He whispered, voice barely working when Doyoung’s focus was still entirely on him, faces way too close. He tried not to stare too much at the slope of Doyoung’s nose or the perfect curve of his lips.

“Kitchen fires are pretty common,” The first firefighter said. “Just be more careful next time kids.”

Jisung nodded, clearly seeing neither Yuta or Doyoung was paying much attention. The firefighters turned to leave before Jisung suddenly called out. “Wait, Uhm, how do we turn off the alarm?”

The first firefighter chuckled and turned off the alarm for them, before leaving with his partner. Jisung left after them, saying how he needed to get back to studying in his room. Yuta let out a small noise to let Jisung know he heard him.

The kitchen was now completely silent except for the faint sounds of Naruto still playing on the living room TV. Doyoung was still standing in front of Yuta with furrowed eyebrows, and Yuta was still trying to process the entire situation.

“Just what the hell were you thinking?” Doyoung scolded, _finally_ stepping away from Yuta. He smacked Yuta on the arm for good measure, making Yuta wince in pain.

“We were just baking,” he whined.

Doyoung furrowed his eyebrows, hands resting on his hips. “You know we have the same free period on Fridays, so you knew I would’ve been home. Why didn’t you just ask for my help?”

Yuta sulked, down turning his head. “I didn’t think we needed help. Plus, you weren’t supposed to know.”

Doyoung sighed, turning around to grab the discarded oven mitt and move to dispose of the ruined cookies for Yuta. “You’re lucky it was a small fire. Did you inhale a lot of smoke? Your eyes are really red.”

Yuta shook his head, ignoring the constricting pain in his throat that he ached to cough out. He didn’t want to worry Doyoung or embarrass himself any more.

“What cookies were you making?” Doyoung asked, placing the tray in the kitchen sink once all the cookies were thrown in the trash.

“Just chocolate chip,” Yuta responded. He leaned back against the counter, moving his hands back to clutch the marble. 

He had forgotten about the hand that he had burned, so when his fingers came into contact with the cool marble he immediately winced in pain, letting out a small groan.

Doyoung whipped his head around in alarm and immediately rushed over when he saw Yuta clutching his hand. “Did you burn yourself?” He asked, taking Yuta’s injured hand in his own, examining the pads of his fingers.

Yuta nodded, brain going haywire as he watched Doyoung gently cradle his injured hand.

“You idiot,” Doyoung scoffed, pulling Yuta by the wrist to the sink. He turned on the faucet until it was pouring cool water and pulled Yuta’s hand underneath the stream. Yuta flinched slightly, fingers turning numb. After a few seconds, Doyoung turned off the faucet and dropped Yuta’s hand. He walked over to the medicine cabinet that they kept in the kitchen and retrieved ointment and a few bandages before returning to where Yuta was standing.

“Were you the one who called the fire department?” Yuta asked as he watched Doyoung unscrew the cap to the ointment.

“You would too if you saw black smoke leaving the window of your neighbor’s house,” Doyoung commented. 

Yuta noticed how the other stuck his tongue out in concentration as he applied the ointment to Yuta’s burns. _Cute,_ he thought to himself.

“Fair,” he replied, wincing when the ointment met his skin.

Doyoung looked up at him in worry, and Yuta noticed just how big the other’s eyes were. “Does it hurt a lot?” Doyoung asked.

Yuta couldn’t help the small smile that made its way to his lips as he shook his head.

Doyoung didn’t look convinced, but he still turned his attention back to Yuta’s fingers. He grabbed the bandages and carefully, one by one, wrapped each of Yuta’s fingers. He now had four of his five fingers wrapped neat and tight.

He wiggled his fingers when Doyoung finished, pulling his hand back. “Thanks, Dons.”

Doyoung blushed, turning his head away from Yuta in favor of gathering all of the bandage wrappers to discard. “You can thank me by not doing something like that again.”

Yuta grinned. “No promises,” he teased.

He received a scoff in return, which only lifted his mood, even more, his previous embarrassment dissipating quickly.

He didn’t think about the awkwardness that he could feel creeping up on the both of them, almost threatening to shatter the comfortable atmosphere they were both so used to.

It had only been a few days since the party, and the image of Doyoung’s face close to his was still fresh in his mind. His words still rang loud in Yuta’s ears.

They don’t talk about it, because there is nothing to talk about.

At least, that was what Yuta tried to convince himself when his heart ached and longed for his best friend.

  
  
  
  


Yuta expected Doyoung to leave after that, but the other started opening all the cabinets and retrieving the ingredients needed to make cookies.

“What are you doing?” Yuta asked.

“What does it look like? We’re going to make another batch of cookies,” Doyoung replied, leaning down to open the oven and inspect the damage done to the inside.

Yuta blinked, brain working way too slow as he watched Doyoung move about the kitchen swiftly.

“Well, are you just going to stand there looking like a Sim, or are you going to help me?”

The joke made Yuta snort and he finally moved to help Doyoung, though he doubted Doyoung would allow him to do much.

After they successfully put the cookies in the oven, a comfortable silence fell over them as they stayed in the kitchen to watch the cookies bake.

Yuta leaned back against the kitchen island, absentmindedly looking out the open window.

After a few minutes, an amusing thought suddenly came to him.

“Hey,” he started, turning to look at Doyoung. When the other looked back at him, he smirked. “How does it feel knowing you helped out the enemy?”

Doyoung scoffed and rolled his eyes with a smile. “No offense, but I doubt me helping you bake one batch of cookies is going to help you in any way. You can’t win the bake sale with something this easy.”

Yuta hummed, tilting his head. “How’d you know we joined the bake sale? Checking up on me?”

A blush made its way onto Doyoung’s cheeks and Yuta resisted the urge to lean forward and pinch them.

“I just happened to find out, not like it was a big secret in the first place,” Doyoung grumbled, casting his gaze away from Yuta.

Yuta couldn't help but giggle. He threw an arm over his forehead. “My entire plan is ruined,” he wailed, “I wanted to surprise you so I could see the look on your face when we showed up to beat your ass.”

“You’ll live,” Doyoung said, but Yuta could see the other was fighting off a smile of his own. “You’re still not going to win.”

“We’ll see about that,” Yuta said softly, before the oven time dinged, signaling the cookies were finished baking.

  
  


**

  
  


Yuta blinked against the early morning sun, head pounding. A tired groan left his lips.

He had apparently underestimated just how much they would need to bake for the sale, so he couldn’t tackle his huge pile of homework until well past midnight.

Now he was walking into the events center with the rest of Delta Nu, iced americano in his hands, regretting that he only got 2 hours of sleep.

“Jungwoo, over here!”

The group of them turned to see Sooyoung running up to them with a bright smile on her lips. Too bright for the hour of the day, Yuta thought to himself.

“Sooyoung!” Jungwoo greeted back eagerly.

The two of them exchanged pleasantries for a few moments, and Yuta took the time to look around the events center. 

He hadn’t been in there many times, mostly because most of the greek life events happened outside or were hosted by one of the houses. The center was big, vast enough to host a small convention. The ceiling was made entirely out of glass, natural light pooling in and illuminating the venue.

It was currently decked out with several booths and tables, a raised stage standing at the back of the hall. A banner with the words _Make a Change Fundraiser_ was hung over the top of the stage. Several people passed them by, the hall already bustling with noise despite the early hour.

Yuta leaned over to whisper into Jaehyun’s ear. “What’s this fundraiser for, anyway?”

Jaehyun took a sip from his own iced americano before answering. “It’s for charities that help endangered species,” he explained.

Yuta nodded, standing up straight once more. He wondered for a moment where Doyoung was, and if he was even at the center yet. Knowing the younger, he would’ve been one of the first ones there. The thought of Doyoung waking up bright and early brought a tired smile to Yuta’s lips as he laughed to himself.

Sooyoung led them further into the center, directing them towards the table they would be using. On their way through the tables they saw a lot of sorority girls they knew as well as a few fraternity boys, who all waved at them eagerly. Yuta would have made small talk if not for the fact he was still waking up and didn’t want to stray too far from the Delta Nu boys.

“This is your table,” Sooyoung said, pointing to one almost all the way at the end of the row of tables. It was bare and didn’t have any tablecloths, but that wasn’t a problem because Yuta knew Jaehyun and Jungwoo had brought their own tablecloth and other decorations. 

Yuta placed his now empty drink down on the table and looked around. They were in a really good spot, being close to the stage as well as one of the entrances. Sooyoung must have really pulled some strings to get them such a good table, he thought.

“Thanks again for letting us join late,” Jungwoo grinned, giving Sooyoung a hug, who returned it with a laugh.

“It’s really nothing Jungwoo, with how often you help me out,” Sooyoung replied. She pulled back with a smile. “Just don’t forget to keep up your end of the promise.”

Jungwoo sent her a wink. “I got you covered.”

Sooyoung rolled her eyes fondly and gave them a final wave before heading off towards the stage.

“Alright, boys, time to get set up,” Taeil said, placing down the several trays of cookie brownies on the table. “The bake sale officially starts in about half an hour, so let’s start with decorating.”

  
  


**

  
  


Bake sales get very boring very fast, Yuta mused to himself.

He leaned back in his metal chair, staring into the space in front of him, mind wandering easily.

After a second, his eyes caught the faintest of movements off to his left that was separate from the peaceful movement of people. He sat up in his chair and squinted, focusing his vision. His eyes made out — was that a _tumbleweed?_ — blowing by.

Yuta blinked, mind running on molasses. He rubbed his palms against his eyelids for a moment before looking back up and sure enough, the tumbleweed was not a figment of his imagination and was actually rolling past him on the ground.

“Mark,” Yuta called, not turning his focus away from the tumbleweed.

Said frat boy walked over to Yuta, confusion on his face at Yuta’s behavior. He tried to follow where the older one was looking but turned up with nothing. “Yes?” He asked tentatively.

“Tell me you see that tumbleweed.”

Mark once again followed Yuta’s line of sight and indeed saw the weed bouncing with the soft breeze that floated into the center from the open doors.

“Don’t you only see those in the desert?” Mark asked.

“Exactly,” Yuta mumbled, squinting his eyes once more while whispering to himself, “Strange.”

“What are you two doing?”

Yuta turned his head and looked at Jungwoo. “There’s a tumbleweed. In Connecticut.” 

Jungwoo gave him an unimpressed stare, but Yuta rolled his eyes and pointed in the direction of the weed that was still rolling along the floor of the center near them.

Jungwoo rolled his eyes. “Maybe the author had some symbolic reason to add it.”

“Author?” Mark asked.

“There you go again with the fourth wall,” Yuta groaned. He turned his head to find the tumbleweed, but it had mysteriously vanished. He pouted, intrigued by the plant.

“Whatever,” Jungwoo said, ignoring the confused look Mark sent both of them. “Can one of you go ask Sooyoung if she has any more napkins? We’re almost out of them.”

Yuta quickly stood up from his chair, eager to do _anything_ but sit around and stare at magically appearing tumbleweeds. “I’ll go,” he replied.

“Thanks,” Jungwoo said before turning back towards the table, Mark following close behind him.

Yuta bent backward, stretching his back that was getting sore from sitting for a long time. He heard one, two, three cracks before letting out a satisfied groan.

He headed towards the front of the events center, the welcome desk probably being his best shot at finding Sooyoung.

Once the welcome desk was in sight, he easily spotted Sooyoung among the small group of people behind the table, her height making her stand out. He also saw that she was currently in a conversation with Johnny, both of them giggling.

“Hope I’m not interrupting something,” Yuta teased, walking up to stand between the two of them.

“Oh, hey Yuta! We were just talking about you,” Sooyoung said with a smile.

Yuta’s eyebrows shot up, looking at Johnny, who sent him a wink. “Me? That’s strange.”

“Your little accident yesterday is all anyone on greek row’s been talking about,” Johnny said, clapping Yuta on the shoulder.

Yuta’s cheeks heated up slightly, embarrassed. “Right,” he mumbled.

“Well, we were mostly talking about how cute it was of Doyoung to call the fire department because of how worried he was,” Sooyoung giggled.

“Really? How’d you know that?” Yuta asked, cheeks heating up even more, but now for a different reason.

Sooyoung nodded. “Johnny was just telling me. You’re both really lucky to have each other. I’m kind of jealous.”

Yuta immediately put his hands up, sputtering. “Oh we’re not- It’s not like that- We’re just-”

“He says thanks,” Johnny interrupted, sliding his arm around Yuta’s shoulder. 

Yuta nodded, laughing nervously.

Sooyoung smiled, but something told Yuta she knew a little more than she let on. “Oh right, did you come over here for a reason?” She asked, already back into work mode.

“Yes actually,” Yuta perked up, remembering his reason for needing to find Sooyoung. “Jungwoo asked for more napkins.”

Sooyoung laughed, rolling her eyes. “Of course Jungwoo needs something. For how efficient the man is, he always forgets one thing every single time.”

Yuta laughed because Sooyoung was exactly right. That was exactly how Jungwoo was, and the other frat boys always teased him about it.

“Tell him I’m sorry but we’re all out as well,” Sooyoung continued, pouting apologetically.

“It’s alright,” Yuta said, shaking his head with a smile.

“I think we have some at our table,” Johnny said, looking down at Yuta. 

Yuta turned his head towards Johnny. “Willing to share?”

Johnny grinned, already tugging Yuta back towards the tables. “Sorry for cutting our conversation short, Sooyoung. I’ll find you later?”

Sooyoung nodded, laughing when Johnny grabbed onto Yuta’s neck too tightly and sent him choking. “Don’t worry about it, and that sounds good. See you later!” She gave them one last wave before walking away as well.

Yuta wiggled out of Johnny’s chokehold and huffed. “So,” he started, already smirking, “you and Sooyoung?”

Johnny rolled his eyes, punching Yuta lightly in the shoulder. “You know it’s not like that.”

“Sure, sure,” Yuta said, giggling and ducking his head when Johnny tried to grab a hold of his neck again.

“You’re lucky I don’t mention whatever is going on between you and Doyoung,” Johnny said, giving up on putting Yuta in a chokehold.

The back of Yuta’s neck flushed and he looked to the ground. “Because there is nothing going on,” He grumbled.

“That night at the party says otherwise.”

Yuta sighed. “Listen I don’t even remember most of that night. How do I know you and Taeyong aren’t just lying to us as some kind of joke?”

Johnny rolled his eyes, looking at Yuta with a bored expression. “Because I’ve seen the way you two look at each other. And I _know_ you. You are not as discreet as you might think.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Yuta asked, offended.

“I’m just saying, this whole war thing you two have going on is a really creative and stupid way of trying to deny your feelings for each other.”

Yuta scoffed, not wanting to admit anything that Johnny was saying was true.

“It’s the same with you two,” Johnny continued, “every few months you both get into a very heated war over something trivial, have a big battle, declare the winner then _refuse_ to acknowledge the results if you lose and in a few weeks you’re back to normal. Can’t one of you just get the balls to confess at the end of one of these already?”

“Confess? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yuta.”

Yuta turned his head and was met with the most unimpressed stare he had ever seen on Johnny. He immediately shrank under the frat boy’s gaze, cheeks heating up more and more.

“I don’t know how,” he eventually whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.

When he opened them back up, Johnny was giving him a sympathetic look. “Just go for it, dude. I promise you you’ll want to do it sooner rather than later.”

Yuta groaned, not expecting the conversation to take that turn. His mind was an absolute mess, and it didn’t help that they were now nearing Sigma Pi’s table. 

Doyoung was noticeable in any crowd, Yuta thought, as he saw the younger boy smiling brightly while handing a little kid a cookie. He looked so beautiful and in his element, talking animatedly with customers. Yuta couldn’t help but smile looking at Doyoung, a bubbling feeling in his heart rapidly overtaking his body.

Okay, so maybe he really did need to confess soon before his heart took the initiative and jumped out of his chest to do it for him.

Doyoung turned around and smiled when he spotted Johnny. His gaze flickered to Yuta and his eyes widened ever so slightly, but his smile remained. “Johnny you’re back!” Doyoung said before his smile curved into a lopsided smirk. “I see you’ve brought the enemy with you. Come to check out first place, Yuta?”

Yuta barked out a laugh, narrowing his eyebrows. “I think you mean _second_ place, Doyoung. I only came by to wish you good luck, not that any luck will help you win.”

“You’re so cocky,” Doyoung said, rolling his eyes, but Yuta saw the faintest of smiles grace his lips. It made his heart twinge slightly.

“Did you get what you needed?” Doyoung asked Johnny.

“Yep, we’re all good,” Johnny replied. He walked over to the table and pulled out a box from underneath it. Inside was a stack of different supplies, including napkins. He took out a package and handed it over to Yuta. “Can’t believe I’m helping out the _enemy_.”

“Shut up,” Yuta laughed, taking the package of napkins with a small _thanks_. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Johnny nodded, and Yuta made off to Delta Nu’s table, mind swimming with images of black hair and a gummy smile.

  
  


**

  
  


“Firstly, I want to thank everyone who helped make this fundraiser run as smoothly as it did.”

Sooyoung smiled at the small crowd of people standing before the stage, voice ringing through the speakers.

“We raised an amazing amount of $12,000 for _Make a Change_! This wouldn’t be possible without our sororities and fraternities who put together the bake sale. Now, I won’t talk too much because I know we’re all dying to go home.”

The crowd let out small chuckles, everyone excited from the long day.

“Let’s get to what you all are really interested in hearing,” Sooyoung said, wiggling her eyebrows. She picked up an envelope off of the table near her. “I’ll announce the three houses that gained the most profit during the bake sale, with the top house receiving a gift basket full of coupons and gift cards to all of our favorite local eateries.”

At that, everyone cheered and clapped, excited to see who had won.

Yuta smirked, looking off to his side where Doyoung was standing a couple of feet away from him. The younger frat boy didn’t notice him, too focused on the stage, and Yuta took the moment to observe the younger’s side profile. 

_Why is everything about him so annoyingly perfect?_ Yuta thought to himself. 

His thoughts were interrupted with Sooyoung clearing her throat, opening the envelope, and slipping a small piece of paper out.

“Third place goes to,” she started, “Beta Theta with their homemade banana bread!”

A chorus of polite claps rang through the crowd, with the girls of Beta Theta cheering and hugging each other tightly.

Yuta wrung his hands together, a strong bout of nervousness suddenly overtaking him. 

In reality, it wasn’t a big deal which one of them won the bake sale. If Yuta actually thought about it rationally, it was never about who actually won their wars. It was about the thrill of riling each other up, sending each other into frenzies until they were both buzzing with the urge to come out on top.

But when did Yuta ever think rationally?

“Second place goes to,” Sooyoung continued, “Delta Nu with their brookie bars!”

Everyone clapped once more. Mark slung an arm over Yuta’s shoulder and smiled brightly, Yuta returning the smile in earnest.

They may not have won the bake sale, but there was still a fluttering feeling in Yuta’s stomach. Maybe he could win something else today if he just found it in him to stop being a coward.

“And first place goes to our now three-time champions, Sigma Pi, with their signature salted brownie cookies!”

Cheers and hollers rang loud once more. Yuta looked over and saw Doyoung smiling brightly, his gums flashing as he hugged Taeyong.

“Second place isn’t so bad,” Jaehyun said. 

Yuta turned and looked into the younger’s eyes, and he saw the knowing sparkle in them as Jaehyun followed his previous line of sight over to Doyoung.

“I think you both can still win today, don’t you think?” He commented, voice casual, but the meaning behind them was heavy.

Yuta couldn’t help but groan, feeling his cheeks flare up. “Am I really that obvious that almost all of you know?”

Jaehyun chuckled, laying a gentle hand on Yuta’s shoulder. “Seriously, Yuta. I think what you want isn’t as far away as you think it is.”

He hated how much sense all of his friends were making. Yuta just wanted to curl up and ignore his mind that raced a mile a minute, thinking up new possible scenarios in his head from the words of his friends.

“First Taeyong, then Johnny, and now you,” Yuta laughed, joking in an attempt to avoid the elephant floating above his head.

Jaehyun only hummed and smiled before walking over to congratulate Johnny and the rest of Sigma Pi.

Yuta shook his head, hoping all of his thoughts would just fall out of his ears and never crawl back in. He steeled himself and followed Jaehyun over to where thes rest of Sigma Pi was standing, a bright smile on his face.

  
  


**

  
  


“Do you all want to come over and hang out?”

Yuta picked his head up from where he was shoving the tablecloth back into its box, not caring about neatly folding it. Taeyong had walked over to their table with a warm smile on his face.

“Not like we have anything better to do,” Jungwoo replied with a laugh, picking up one of the boxes from the floor.

Taeyong laughed, shaking his head. “Donghyuck asked specifically for you all to celebrate our win, and you know how the boy is.”

“Oh we know,” Taeil said, packing the last of their brookie bars into take-home containers. All the boys let out fond laughs.

“We’ve already finished at our table,” Taeyong continued, “Johnny and Donghyuck are already on their way over. We can all head home together.”

The frat boys all nodded and agreed, but Yuta stood up and looked at Taeyong questioningly. “What about Doyoung?” He couldn’t help but ask.

Taeyong smiled, mirth on his face. “He always stays behind to help clean up the entire event. You know how he is.”

Yuta nodded slightly, taking in the information.

“You know,” Taeyong started. He took a step towards Yuta and lowered his voice, “he’s probably by the stage right now, alone. If you wanted to, you know, go help him out.”

Yuta blushed, lowering his gaze. "Taeyong," he started softly.

"Don't even try to make up an excuse," Taeyong said, giving him a pointed look. "You have to at least _try_ Yuta, besides I refuse to hear any more whining from either of you."

Stifling a laugh, Yuta nodded his head once, sending Taeyong a grateful smile. "Alright, alright. Thanks, Yong."

"You can thank me by treating me with sweet potatoes."

Yuta rolled his eyes fondly, ruffling Taeyong's hair lightly. "You got it."

He gave the other boys a small wave of goodbye, who all sent him overdramatic winks and hollers in return. He shook his head with a laugh and walked off in the direction of the stage, noticing that there really wasn't anyone around.

When he got closer, he heard faint sounds of boxes being placed on the ground followed by a soft groan.

He turned the corner around the stage and saw Doyoung struggling to lift a huge cardboard box off of the ground. He quickly rushed over and grabbed a hold of the box before Doyoung could attempt to pick it up once more.

"Here let me," he said softly, sending Doyoung a lopsided smile.

"Yuta? What are you doing here?" Doyoung asked, eyes widening. He clearly didn't expect the older frat boy to show up and help him.

"What does it look like I'm doing here?" Yuta teased, sticking his tongue out playfully. "Now where does this box go?"

"Over there," Doyoung responded, voice seemingly dazed as he pointed in the direction of an open door on the nearby wall.

Yuta hummed in affirmation and walked over to the open door, seeing that it opened up into a big storage closet that was lined with metal shelving. He set the box down on one of the lower shelves when he spotted an open spot.

“Is there anything else?” Yuta asked once he stepped out of the closet, facing Doyoung once more.

The younger nodded his head towards the stage. “Just a few more boxes up on top of the stage.”

Yuta walked towards the stage wordlessly, spotting the last boxes easily. These were a little smaller than the previous ones, so he figured he could grab two at a time to speed up the process of carrying them to the closet.

Doyoung grabbed one of the boxes and walked alongside Yuta back to the closet.

There was a comfortable silence between the two of them, a familiar one that settled itself over them whenever they were alone together. Words weren’t always needed, and Yuta liked how he could settle into the silence with Doyoung next to him, bathing it in with a content sigh.

At that moment, however, Yuta’s nerves were on overdrive, buzzing, and yearning to do something, _anything_. All he wished was to scream from the rooftops about how beautiful he found Doyoung, how much the younger made his heart soar and do somersaults when he so much as sent a small smile Yuta’s way. 

He put the two boxes next to the previous box, and when he turned around he almost collided with the box Doyoung was holding.

“Woah,” he said, stepping back and bumping into the shelf. He winced as his back dug into the metal shelving.

He heard a groan from Doyoung and looked up to meet the other’s eyes. “How do you get hurt this often?”

Yuta couldn’t help but chuckle nervously. “Not like I’m doing it on purpose Dons.”

Doyoung rolled his eyes and placed the box in Yuta’s hands. “You should still try and be more careful,” he chastised, before turning and walking out of the closet and back to the stage.

Yuta quickly placed the box given to him on the shelf behind him and ran after Doyoung.

“Yeah yeah, I know,” Yuta said, falling into place beside Doyoung. Another moment of silence fell over them until Yuta suddenly had a thought.

“Hey, Doyoung?”

Doyoung hummed next to him, grabbing the last box.

“You wouldn’t happen to have any of your cookies left would you?” Yuta asked.

Doyoung looked up at him and blinked, seemingly surprised. “Why do you ask?”

Yuta rolled his eyes with a laugh. “Because I didn’t get to try them at all today. I think I should taste the cookie that beat my team, don’t you think?”

Doyoung shook his head, but Yuta saw the shadow of a smile forming on his lips. “You know we sold out towards the end, Yuta.”

“I know,” Yuta whined, “but I was hoping you might’ve saved some for us.”

A scoff. “And why would I have done that?”

They were at the closet again, Doyoung walking in to put the box away while Yuta leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

“Because I know you,” Yuta said simply, “and it’s your style to want to rub your win in my face by making me taste your winning cookie.”

Doyoung didn’t say anything for a few moments, back turned from Yuta. The box was already resting neatly on the shelf with the others, Doyoung’s hands absentmindedly running over the cardboard.

“Plus,” Yuta continued, pushing off the door frame to full step inside the closet, moving closer to Doyoung’s broad form, “you _always_ set aside anything you bake for the boys to try. The smiles you get in return make you happier than baking does,” He paused for a moment, breath catching his throat, “I love to see you happy.”

He didn’t know why, but his voice had grown softer as he spoke until it was barely above a whisper when he uttered his last few words. His feet had moved on their own and now he was practically pressed against Doyoung’s back, a mere foot of space between them. 

Doyoung still said nothing, but then the younger slowly shifted on his feet so he was facing Yuta. Yuta swore he could see the remnants of a blush sitting high on Doyoung’s cheekbones, but when he looked into the younger’s eyes, they flickered with something he still couldn’t pinpoint.

“How can you say things like that with such conviction and not expect any consequences?” Doyoung whispered.

Yuta blinked, furrowing his eyebrows. “What do you mean? What consequences?” He searched Doyoung’s eyes, confused, but the other quickly hung his head, staring down at the ground. He shook his head lightly, his bangs bouncing with the movement.

“Nevermind,” Doyoung said softly, “forget I said anything.”

He stepped forward and brushed past Yuta’s shoulder, moving to make his way out of the closet, but Yuta quickly turned around and grabbed his wrist without thinking

“Doyoung,” Yuta started, angling his neck to stare at the back of the younger’s neck. He could feel his heart beat loudly in his ears, body itching to envelop Doyoung in his arms.

“I can’t go get your cookies if you’re holding onto me that tightly silly,” Doyoung joked, tilting his neck to send Yuta a small smile.

Yuta desperately wished Doyoung would tell him what he meant earlier, desperately wished to understand why Doyoung’s face suddenly looked so sad. He desperately wished to stop delaying the screaming of his heart telling him to just surge forward and plant a kiss on Doyoung’s lips.

He squeezed Doyoung’s wrist lightly, hoping to convey his feelings, before letting go, allowing Doyoung to step outside of the closet.

He slowly followed after Doyoung out of the closet, seeing the other dig through a cloth bag that was resting on a table near the side of the stage. Sure enough, Doyoung took out a small plastic container that had a couple of his cookies neatly stacked inside.

“Looks like I know you too well,” Yuta said lightly, hoping to bring back the comfortable atmosphere that so often surrounded them.

Doyoung let out a soft laugh and carefully opened the plastic container. “Looks like you do,” he said, mostly to himself.

He gingerly plucked one of the cookies and held it out for Yuta to take.

“Thank you,” Yuta said, taking the cookie out of Doyoung’s hand. He looked at the round cookie, the bottom barely crispy while the top was expertly cracked through. Flakes of salt were scattered on top of the chocolate dough, a stark contrast to the dark color of the cookie.

Yuta stopped admiring the cookie and finally took a bite into it, immediately being bombarded with rich chocolate flavors. In a second the salt hit his tongue and created a crack of flavor, the contrast of salty and sweet making his taste buds cry out in joy.

He couldn’t help the moan that left his lips as he chewed around the cookie, its texture a perfect mixture of crunchy and soft.

Suddenly he heard an onslaught of giggles and looked up to see Doyoung trying and failing to contain his laughter behind his hand, clutching his stomach and hunching over.

“I’m sorry,” Doyoung said through wheezes, gums on full display as he tilted his head back to try and breathe, “It’s just… you literally look like you want to have sex with that cookie,” His chest constricted and another fit of giggles escaped him.

Yuta only stared wide-eyed at Doyoung, half-eaten cookie still in his hands. It took him a couple of seconds to truly process Doyoung’s words, but when he did he choked around the piece of cookie in an attempt to calm his own laughter threatening to spill out. Pieces of cookie flew out of his mouth and he quickly shoved the rest of the cookie inside messily, trying to finish all of it at once.

“Oh my god you are _such_ a child,” Yuta said around a huff of laughter.

Doyoung scoffed loudly, giggles still pouring out of his mouth. “Like you’re one to talk!”

“Shut up,” Yuta laughed, pointing at Doyoung accusingly, “This is just really fucking good!” He said while chewing around the cookie, voice muffled.

“Gross, don’t talk with your mouth full,” Doyoung replied, laughter finally subsiding. He took a few deep breaths and stared pointedly at Yuta, “you’re spitting the cookie _everywhere_.”

Yuta rolled his eyes, swallowing the last of the cookie and leaning forward with a teasing smile. “Do I have crumbs on my face?”

Doyoung leaned forwards as well, peering at Yuta’s lips. Yuta tried not to think about how he could practically count all of Doyoung’s eyelashes right now if he focused hard enough.

“You do,” Doyoung said, unconsciously bringing his hand up. “Right, there,” he said softly, thumb brushing over the corner of Yuta’s lips as he swiped a crumb off his skin.

Yuta’s entire world stopped for several seconds, and all his brain could process was the soft pad of Doyoung’s thumb barely brushing the plump of his lips. His touch seared into Yuta’s skin, making his heart lodge itself in his throat, clawing at his esophagus and threatening to jump straight out of his mouth.

He stared cross-eyed down at Doyoung, whose hand had momentarily stopped moving after cleaning his skin, thumb still _so close_ to the corner of his mouth. If he just quirked his lips a little bit, he would be able to feel the softness of Doyoung’s finger once more.

When his eyes came into focus, Yuta saw Doyoung staring right back up at him, seemingly dazed. Neither of them made to pull apart, their breaths hot and mingling together.

Even up close and barely in focus, Yuta still thought Doyoung was breathtaking.

“Doyoung,” Yuta breathed softly, breaking the silence ever so slightly.

Doyoung blinked, not responding for a few moments. His thumb absentmindedly pressed gently into the corner of Yuta’s lips, while his other fingers tickled at the curve of his jaw.

At this point, Yuta felt every inch of his skin prickling, hair standing on end as though he just rubbed his socked feet across his carpet vigorously. This was his only chance, he had to try and get _something_ out, but his throat felt like cotton, tongue glued to the roof of his mouth.

“Doyoung,” He started again, seeing the younger’s gaze flicker back up to his eyes, “Do you remember the night of the party? About what you said?”

Something flashed in Doyoung’s eyes before he was pulling off Yuta as though he had just been burned by a hot stove. He retracted his hand and looked anywhere but Yuta, cheeks flaming in embarrassment.

“Why the hell are you bringing that up now?” He asked, voice wavering slightly, and if Yuta wasn’t so attuned to Doyoung he wouldn’t have noticed it.

_This is it_ , he thought. _Just tell him for god's sake_.

“I just wanted to,” Yuta started, hands slightly trembling at his sides. He just wanted to, what? Wanted to make Doyoung know he didn’t mind if the other wanted to kiss him? Wanted him to know that that was actually the only thing Yuta could think about when he shut his eyes to fall asleep?”

Doyoung once again focused his gaze to meet Yuta’s eyes, and Yuta couldn’t help but feel a sting in his heart looking into the younger’s eyes. He had such beautiful eyes, pupils sparkling whenever he lit up about something he loved — which more often than not included cooking.

“I just wanted to know,” Yuta continued, heart clambering, “if you meant what you said, that night. Because I,” he paused, the words clinging to the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t get them out. He closed his mouth, stopping his sentence midway.

The same flicker crossed Doyoung’s eyes, and Yuta swore he noticed Doyoung’s shoulders tense up before forcibly relaxing.

“Yuta please, don’t,” Doyoung started, voice resigned and gaze already turned away from Yuta for the third time. Yuta couldn’t help but already feel like his heart was breaking, even if Doyoung hadn’t explicitly said anything yet. 

For how shy Doyoung could get from the onslaught of teasing the boys put him through, he was never one to purposefully break eye contact with someone he was conversing with. Because that was just Doyoung, he gave his full attention to everything and everyone.

Except now.

Yuta saw Doyoung open his mouth to continue, but he quickly cut him off.

“It’s alright, you don’t have to say it,” He said hastily, hoping to get all his words out before his throat completely closed upon him, “I know you wanted to forget about everything. Just disregard what I said, yeah?”

He instinctively took a step backward, wanting to run away as far as possible when he felt a sting behind his eyes, threatening to grow and spillover. 

God, he was being way too overdramatic over something as stupid as words spoken in the heat of drunkenness. He was so stupid.

“Wait, Yuta,” Doyoung reached his hand out, but Yuta was already shaking his head, plastering on a tight smile.

“We finished cleaning up pretty fast. I’m just going to head home, yeah?” He didn’t wait to see the look on Doyoung’s face as he turned on his heel, walking off.

  
  


**

  
  


Yuta didn’t regret many things in his life.

He regretted going four days without sleep his sophomore year of high school as part of a dare with Johnny, which ended in him collapsing from exhaustion and spending the weekend of Homecoming bedridden in a hospital.

He regretted trying to chug an entire plastic bottle filled with vodka during a football game his senior year, _also_ as part of a dare with Johnny. He had chugged the alcohol no problem but had ended up passing out and waking up 13 hours later, half-naked and behind the bleachers.

He regretted the first-ever “war” he started with Doyoung in their freshman year of college, back when they took the “enemies” part of a war much too seriously. That first war resulted in Yuta streaking across campus, skinny dipping in the nearby lake, and spending the night in a holding cell.

Actually, Yuta didn’t regret that night, not when he and Doyoung spent their time in the holding cell talking about nothing and everything, not having any company besides each other for almost 12 hours. They had walked into the holding cell “enemies”, and came out somewhat friends.

They left behind their unnecessary hatred, but somehow their little wars followed them even into friendship. Yuta could never regret that.

Not that he would have it any other way, though. He never admitted it to his friends — though he was almost absolutely sure they already knew — but he found joy in starting a new war with Doyoung. 

It was the smirks they sent each other that left Yuta’s skin swimming with electricity, the back and forth teasing that made Yuta’s heart flutter impossibly hard, and the smile he got from Doyoung after it was all over and they were back to their comfortable silences made Yuta’s face split in pain from how happy he was.

He wondered if he could ever experience another one of their comfortable silences again after he had basically fucked up their friendship for good the previous day.

He sat at the kitchen island, window open once more to let in a soft fall breeze. The wind was still warm against the tips of his ears despite the temperature slowly dropping. It was nearing the end of October, after all.

Fall was in full swing around them. He barely recalled the changing of the seasons, probably too occupied with other things to notice the leaves curling into shades of red and orange and falling off their branches.

He tried to focus on the pages of the book on the table under him, but his mind was unrelenting in its thoughts, all of them swimming behind Yuta’s eyelids, refusing to let him focus properly.

He let out a groan and shut the textbook, not wanting to spend too much of his Sunday trying to memorize the anatomy of the leg. He was never a big fan of anatomy anyway.

The first few notes of Yummy resounded through the first floor of the house, faintly carrying into the kitchen.

Yuta let out another groan, raking his hands through his hair before dragging them across his face. He didn’t want to deal with whoever was on the other side of the front door, because he wasn’t sure he could reign in his bad mood enough to not snap at them.

“Jungwoo can you get the door?” Yuta called, slightly angling his neck to direct his voice in the direction of the living room.

When he didn’t get an immediate response or hear the shuffling of socks along the carpet, he completely turned his head to try and look into the living room from his spot at the island.

“Jungwoo?” He called out again. He could’ve sworn the younger was on the couch with Jaehyun watching some random Korean drama.

However he couldn’t see anybody from his current position, so he figured Jungwoo and Jaehyun had probably retreated to their own room, preferring the privacy of those four walls to do _god knows what_.

The melody of Yummy kept ringing into the silence, the visitor on the other side of the door expectantly waiting for someone to open the door and silence the bell.

Yuta sighed to himself and resigned that he would just have to get up and open the door himself because clearly, nobody else in the entire Delta Nu cared enough to come down and do it themselves.

He stood up from his chair, back aching from sitting in the same hunched position for hours on end. How he wished he could be lying on Doyoung’s bed instead; at least then his back wouldn’t be at risk of giving out and he could actually try and focus on his schoolwork.

Trudging over to the front door, Yuta vaguely wondered who could be on the other side. He usually knew if they were expecting an important guest and if the visitor was for someone specific usually that frat boy would eagerly come running down the stairs to open the door for their friend.

Maybe they were expecting some kind of delivery?, Yuta belatedly thought to himself as he stepped into the entrance hall.

He turned the door handle and pulled the door back, effectively shutting up the obnoxious ringing of Justin Bieber’s voice.

Yuta was so bleary from the short walk from the kitchen to the front of the house that it took him almost a solid minute to process who was standing on the other side of the door.

There Doyoung was, in all his casually handsome glory, with a sheepish smile on his face, carrying a small box in his hands.

Yuta’s mind was running on molasses, slowly blinking at the boy in front of him. He didn’t know what to say, especially after the stunt he pulled walking away from Doyoung like that not even 24 hours ago. What does one even say to their best friend after that?

“Do-”

“Before you say anything,” Doyoung cut him off, running a hand nervously through his bangs, which fell softly over his forehead. Yuta wished he could reach out and feel the hair underneath his fingertips.

“At least look at what I brought you,” Doyoung continued, directing Yuta’s attention to the small box that was resting in Doyoung’s arms. It was white but had a clear film over the lid, the same box they used to wrap sweets in a bakery, that allowed a peek inside.

Yuta couldn’t sustain his curiosity and leaned forward slightly, peering through the clear plastic on the top of the box to see what was sitting inside.

His eyes made out six cupcakes, with the letters _T R U C E_ frosted on each of the cupcakes in succession, spelling out _truce?_ with a very wonky looking question mark frosted on the last cupcake.

He couldn’t help the laugh that left his lips, and before he knew it a waterfall broke out of his chest, and a long string of chuckles and giggles poured out of his mouth, with Yuta unable to control it.

“I thought you might like it,” Doyoung said, unfazed by Yuta’s uncontrollable seize of giggles, “It was Donghyuck’s idea. That’s why the frosting is a little wobbly.”

Yuta shook his head, wiping a stray tear from the corner of his eye. “It is so adorable.” He took another look inside the box. “Is that red velvet?”

Doyoung nodded, down turning his head so Yuta couldn’t see his eyes. “Your favorite.”

“My favorite,” Yuta repeated, voice soft. His lips were still spread wide in a smile from his laughs, but he couldn’t but feel ten pounds lighter.

The both of them stood there for a few moments, saying nothing as Yuta stared absentmindedly at the cupcakes in the box and Doyoung stared at something at his feet.

Finally, Yuta remembered just where they were, exactly. “Oh, I’m sorry, come in,” he said, stepping back to open the way for Doyoung to step through the threshold of the house, who did so with a small _thanks_.

He closed the door behind both of them and easily followed Doyoung as the younger walked past him, through the living room, and into the kitchen. 

Doyoung set the box of cupcakes down on the island next to Yuta’s closed textbook and took a seat, as though everything was still normal between them.

Yuta hesitated at the door to the kitchen, staring at the back of Doyoung’s frame. _Was_ everything still normal?

“Still struggling with anatomy?”

Yuta looked at Doyoung then noticed the younger’s gaze was focused on his textbook, his fingers tracing the cover absentmindedly.

“You know how I feel about anatomy,” Yuta responded automatically, fully stepping into the kitchen and taking a seat across from Doyoung. He didn’t think he could survive if he sat next to Doyoung, the urge to reach out and touch the younger, even just the simplest of hand-holding, too strong.

Doyoung snorted, fingers dropping. “I’ve heard about your burning hatred for the subject one too many times to count.”

“Then there’s no reason to ask,” Yuta teased, keeping his voice light. 

For once he couldn’t read the atmosphere surrounding them, and he didn’t want to accidentally shatter something he never knew could be this fragile.

“No, no I guess there wasn’t,” Doyoung replied, voice going soft, “I guess I just wanted to hear your voice talk.”

Yuta paused, tongue going dry. What did Doyoung mean by that?

He was all caught up in his own head, thoughts swirling in a giant circle behind his eyes, stabbing at his brain and skull. He just wanted to scream and tell Doyoung how he felt, how he desperately wished the younger wouldn’t hate him, how he didn’t want to ruin their friendship.

“I actually came here to apologize,” Doyoung said, seemingly undeterred by Yuta’s silence, “if the cupcakes weren’t enough proof of that,” he finished with a light laugh.

Doyoung, apologize? Yuta couldn’t help but furrow his eyebrows, momentarily forgetting about his swirl of thoughts.. “No, wait Doyoung. I should be the one apologizing to _you_ after yesterday-”

“Yuta.”

He looked into Doyoung’s eyes and saw the same conviction the other held whenever he had made up his mind about a decision. He slowly closed his mouth, keeping silent so the younger could continue what he wanted to say, despite every bone in Yuta’s body telling him to just _confess_.

Doyoung sighed, glancing at the box of cupcakes that rested between them on the island and then up at Yuta.

“I’m sorry for yesterday,” Doyoung started after a few seconds, voice wavering with nervousness. Yuta wanted to reach out and smooth out the strands of his hair in the way he knew calmed Doyoung down, but he kept his hands to himself. “I was acting skittish and almost harsh, and I think it scared you away.”

Yuta opened his mouth once more, but Doyoung sent him a look and he promptly closed it again, slumping in his seat with a whine.

“I was so scared when you brought up the party,” Doyoung said, wringing his fingers together, “I was scared that you’d say something along the lines of _Oh Doyoung it didn’t mean anything, just forget it! We’re only friends, Doyoung don’t worry about it!_ and I didn’t know if I could handle that.”

Yuta shook his head, not knowing what Doyoung was getting at, but he didn’t say a word, sensing that Doyoung still wasn’t finished.

“I so desperately wished we could actually forget about it at first, but I realized I didn’t want to hear you actually say it because that would just solidify what I feared. That you didn’t see me that way, and would _never_ see me that way. It was why I was nervous the past few days, and so on edge.”

The cogs in Yuta’s head clanked and groaned, oxidized from years of inactivity. They slowly started turning, ripping through the cobwebs that connected them to the rest of Yuta’s brain.

“To be honest I don’t remember everything I said at that party, what with Taeyong and Johnny being our only sources, and do I honestly trust those two knowing they were also probably wasted? Not really.” Doyoung paused to take a deep breath, this time looking directly into Yuta’s eyes.

Like he always did.

“What I’m trying to say is,” he started, voice so quiet Yuta had to strain his ears to hear him, “I meant every word of what I said, whatever the hell it was. Anything I said about wanting to kiss you, about wanting to…” he paused again, cheeks heating up at the suggestion behind his words. “I want it. I want _you_ ,” he finished, whispering.

Silence fell over them, thick and filled to the brim with tension.

But comfortable.

Something clicked in Yuta’s chest and his heart finally, _finally_ , felt light.

“Oh Dons,” Yuta started, already feeling his smile stretch wider than it ever has in his life, “I’ve wanted you since we spent the night in that holding cell together freshman year and you said you wished I had died in that lake.”

A beat of silence, and then a laugh escaped Doyoung’s lips, but Yuta could also hear all the apprehension and fear leave Doyoung with it.

“That was one of the worst nights of my life,” Doyoung said, but he couldn’t help but break out into a fit of giggles. “I can’t believe you had to bring that up right when I’m trying to tell you I like you.”

Yuta shrugged his shoulders lightly, feeling on top of the world. “What can I say? I’m a master of ruining the moment.”

But the moment wasn’t ruined. 

In fact, in Yuta’s opinion, nothing could ever ruin this moment.

He was on a cloud, floating along the endless sea of sky with nothing but euphoria flowing through his veins.

Doyoung wanted him. Doyoung _liked_ him.

And Doyoung never simply wanted anybody, never taking anyone home for a simple night together. Doyoung put his full focus and attention into everything and everyone, and that included those he chose to open his heart up to.

He wanted to open his heart to Yuta, and Yuta was ready to give everything he had in him to Doyoung.

“Is this real?” Yuta couldn’t help but blurt out, “Maybe you should pinch me just to be sure.”

He didn’t expect Doyoung to actually reach his arm over and pinch the skin of Yuta’s hand harshly, laughing when Yuta drew back his hand with a yelp and a whine.

Yuta glared at the smug look on Doyoung’s face, carefully caressing his hurt skin. “What’d you do that for?” He pouted.

Doyoung rolled his eyes, gummy smile on his face. “Because you told me to, dumbass.”

“I was clearly _joking_ ,” Yuta replied, sticking his tongue out at Doyoung, who only responded with a fond shake of his head.

When Yuta looked into Doyoung’s eyes again, he noticed the same flicker he saw the previous day, but now he wasn’t afraid to say that it was a look of fondness that crossed Doyoung’s pupils.

“So,” Yuta started, crossing his arms and leaning them on the cool top of the marble, “Am I really worth more than winning our heated war?” He asked, pointing his gaze down towards the box of cupcakes still sitting between them.

Doyoung huffed, smiling. “I hate to admit it, but yes. I will, albeit unwillingly, resign my win in place for a truce.”

Yuta couldn’t help but smile brightly, teeth on full display. “I accept your truce,” He replied, pausing for a moment before continuing, “but only if you agree to go on a date with me.”

“So does that mean you like me back?” Doyoung started, biting his lip nervously.

Yuta reached over and took Doyoung’s hand in his own, lacing their fingers together. “As I’ve said, I’ve liked you since before I even wanted to be your friend.”

The shy smile Doyoung sent his way was worth more than all the trouble they went through together. 

“Now about that date,” Yuta teased, sending Doyoung a wink, who only scoffed and shook his head in return, but they were both wearing matching bright smiles on their faces.

Yuta could get used to this.

  
  


**

  
  


“What the hell are those two doing?”

Donghyuck turned his head and greeted Taeil with a bright smile and a hug.

“It’s called a Shokugeki,” Mark replied from the other side of Donghyuck, eyes laser-focused on the scene in front of him,

Doyoung and Yuta were currently standing on opposite ends of the kitchen island in Sigma Pi, sending each other matching death glares. They both held kitchen knives in their hands while a variety of ingredients were neatly placed on the counter in front of them both.

“A show you what?” Taeil asked, plopping down on the couch next to Donghyuck.

“It’s some anime thing,” Jungwoo piped up, sitting on the edge of the armchair opposite the couch, with Jaehyun next to him actually sitting in the armchair, one hand wrapped loosely around Jungwoo’s hips.

“I think it stands for Food War,” Jaehyun added.

Taeil blinked at the couple, not really knowing what he was hearing. “Food war? Didn’t we just do that like two months ago?”

“Yep,” Taeyong said, walking into the living room with a warm smile and wave. “But Yuta wouldn’t stop teasing Doyoung about how he ended it with a truce so Doyoung challenged him to a cooking battle, and then Yuta got way too excited about this one cooking anime he watched, and now we’re here.”

Taeil still didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he learned to stop asking too many questions when it came to Doyoung and Yuta.

“Johnny is currently refereeing,” Taeyong continued, taking a seat on the other armchair that sat adjacent to the one Jaehyun was sitting in, “I think he’s enjoying it far more than the two of them are.”

A loud bang came from the kitchen, and Taeil could’ve sworn he heard Johnny let out an evil laugh followed by the sound of hand slapping skin.

“How do the two of them find the time to argue even while cooking?” Taeil mused, crossing one leg over the other.

Across from him, Taeyong shrugged. “They’ve always been like that though, haven’t they? The only thing that’s different now is that they kiss afterward.”

“How much you wanna bet they’re just going to fuck after this is over and not even declare a winner?” Jungwoo drawled, acting uninterested in the entire ordeal as he stared down at his phone.

“Is that even a question at this point? They fuck more than you two rabbits did at the start of your relationship,” Donghyuck piped up, sending Jungwoo a cheeky grin when the older gasped loudly, offended.

“Don’t talk that way to me, kid,” Jungwoo said, glaring at Donghyuck.

Donghyuck only stuck his tongue out, smiling mischievously. Jungwoo stood up angrily but was pulled down by the hand Jaehyun had on his hip.

“Not worth it baby,” Jaehyun said calmly.

“Anyways!” Taeil interjected, grateful to steer the conversation far, _far_ away from anything coherently sexual. “What exactly are they going to be cooking?” He asked, looking at Taeyong.

“All I know is that they have to incorporate beef into their dish. They can make whatever they want with the ingredients they have, and then Johnny is going to judge and decide the winner,” Taeyong responded.

Taeil nodded, chuckling lightly. “You’d think Yuta had learned his lesson about challenging Doyoung in cooking, huh?”

All the frat boys let out their own degrees of laughter, as sounds of bickering and knives against cutting boards poured into the room from the kitchen.

“Fools in love never learn their lesson,” Jungwoo said, pocketing his phone with a playful smile. “Just take Jaehyun, for example.”

Jaehyun pouted up at his boyfriend, scrunching his nose cutely. “Babe.”

Jungwoo sighed dramatically cupping the sides of Jaehyun’s face with his hands, squishing his boyfriend’s cheeks together and cooing at him.

“Can’t believe I fell for someone who has literal cat whiskers when he smiles,” Jungwoo whined, but he still bent down to plant a series of chaste kisses to Jaehyun’s lips, melting away his boyfriend’s pouts.

The frat boys around them all groaned at the display of affection from the couple.

“Gross,” Donghyuck sneered.

“Awe no, I think they’re really cute,” Mark said wistfully, his focus on the match momentarily broken as he smiled fondly at Jungwoo and Jaehyun, who pulled back from their kiss with broad smiles on their faces.

“You only say that because you have Yukhei, while the rest of us are all painfully single,” Donghyuck grumbled, crossing his arms in front of his chest and leaning back against the couch cushions with a scowl.

Mark blushed and ducked his head, embarrassed, but he couldn’t deny that what Donghyuck said was correct.

Another loud clatter rang from the kitchen and into the living room. It sounded like a pot had fallen to the floor, its sound echoing through the entire house, followed by harsh curses in both Korean and Japanese.

“Remind me who let those two date again?” Jaehyun asked with a lift of his eyebrows.

The other frat boys shrugged.

“Only god knows,” Taeyong replied, grabbing a book off of the low coffee table, seemingly the only one absolutely calm in the midst of all of the chaos.

Another clatter, and another scream.

_Young love_ , Taeil thought to himself with an eye roll.

**Author's Note:**

> [hides] I hope you liked it
> 
> ****edit  
> I totally forgot to edit now that reveals are over, but I have nothing much else to say than I hope anyone who came across this fic liked it as much as I like writing it! This is definitely /my baby/, and it means a lot to me haha.
> 
> please scream at me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/doyuberry)


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